Don't Think, Dear

On Loving and Leaving Ballet

By: Alice Robb

Narrated by: Alice Robb

An incisive exploration of ballet’s role in the modern world, told through the experience of the author and her classmates at the most elite ballet school in the country: the School of American Ballet.

Growing up, Alice Robb dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer. But by age fifteen, she had to face the reality that she would never meet the impossibly high standards of the hyper-competitive ballet world. After she quit, she tried to avoid ballet—only to realize, years later, that she was still haunted by the lessons she had absorbed in the mirror-lined studios of Lincoln Center, and that they had served her well in the wider world. The traits ballet takes to an extreme—stoicism, silence, submission—are valued in girls and women everywhere.

Profound, nuanced, and passionately researched, Don’t Think, Dear is Robb’s excavation of her adolescent years as a dancer and an exploration of how those days informed her life for years to come.

As she grapples with the pressure she faced as a student at the School of American Ballet, she investigates the fates of her former classmates as well. From sweet and innocent Emily, whose body was deemed thin enough only when she was too ill to eat, to precocious and talented Meiying, who was thrilled to be cast as the young star of the Nutcracker but dismayed to see Asians stereotyped onstage, and Lily, who won the carrot they had all been chasing—an apprenticeship with the New York City Ballet—only to spend her first season dancing eight shows a week on a broken foot.

Theirs are stories of heartbreak and resilience, of reinvention and regret. Along the way, Robb weaves in the myths of famous ballet personalities past and present, from the groundbreaking Misty Copeland, who rose from poverty to become an icon of American ballet, to the blind diva Alicia Alonso, who used the heat of the spotlights and the vibrations of the music to navigate space onstage. By examining the psyche of a dancer, Don’t Think, Dear grapples with the contradictions and challenges of being a woman today.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Not what I expected

From the title, I was expecting more of a memoir. This book is largely a review of other works about historical figures from ballet. It is extremely one sided and, while it has important information regarding the unhealthy environment in ballet around body image, health, and control it provides little balance. I think this book should have been read by a professional. The author struggles through the Russian names she mentions which is off putting.

Compelling!!

I loved this book, I know nothing about ballet and still loved. A fascinating insider’s look. The author should drop the vocal fry, it is so awful and unnecessary, a bad habit

A glimpse into ballet culture

I learnt about this book from the podcast 'Articles of Interest" when they covered ballet shoes, which piqued my interest to do a deeper dive on the topic. This book really hit the spot for me, weaving together history, anecdotes and research in a beautiful choreography. I love learning the history of arts and their craft, and I am fascinated by cult-like environments and how people descend into & heal from them - and how it intersects with identity and gender.

I personally really enjoyed listening to Robb's voice. She was interviewed on the aforementioned podcast, and i was excited to find that she recorded her own book. I sometimes struggled when perspectives changed between the cast of people introduced in this book and i had to rewind to catch the names, but otherwise i got everything i wanted from this book.

Beautiful

This was a very thoughtful and elegant book. I think I learned as much from the writing style itself as I did from the content—no doubt a gracefulness that stands as an homage to the art the author never entirely left.

Intense

Revealing and tragic in every way. Well written and honest. I am an adult wannabe ballerina. I am enchanted by dance and now just di the best I can for my own enrichment but on a very small scale I can relate to much of the theme of this book. Excellent.