Hold Me, Anna Savas (Review by Samantha Tiernan)

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Hold Me (New England School of Ballet #1) was a lovely read by Anna Savas.  Hold Me is a coming-of-age story that follows two main characters Zoe and Jase. Jase is best friends with Zoes older brother Caleb and secretly admires Zoe from afar. Until one night after a high school dance, Zoe leaves the dance and Jase follows her home. Zoe goes into their family treehouse that has been in her front yard for years. Instead of talking, Zoe and Jase trade secrets on little pieces of paper. They trade secrets on these little pieces of paper all summer until suddenly Zoe stops responding. Jase has no idea why she stops and doesn’t see her around anymore.

A year later, Zoe and Jase run into each other at the ballet school in New England that they now both attend. Zoe tries to approach Jase, but Jase doesn’t want anything to do with Zoe after a year of no communication. Since the ballet school is relatively small, Zoe and Jase are forced to be dance partners with each other for one of their classes. They are forced to figure out their issues or they will be forced to leave this prestigious school. To help with their communication, Zoe and Jase start sharing secrets again and communicating on little pieces of paper slipped under dorm room doors. Zoe and Jase both have some traumatic experiences that they both went through when they did not communicate for a year. They end up finding out each other’s secrets and help each other heal from their traumatic experiences. There are trigger warnings for this book including Rape, Panic Attacks, Death, and Grief. I felt that this book was written very well but there could have been more side character development as they were introduced very fast in the book with no background on the characters. I would give this book 3.5 stars out of 5 stars.