Limelight

Danny skips class for the first time to audition for the performing arts Highschool LaGuardia in Manhatten. Far from his life in Staten Island, he meets Christian and learns about the New York of musicals, and artists, dancers, and drag queens. When he gets offered a place at the highschool, he has to navigae this world, trying to hold on to who he was back home and who he's become onthe stage. Limelight is a wonderful coming-of-age story set in the musical world of the 1990s. It transports you back in time and into the life of a young adult just trying to find his way. Andrew Keenan-Bolger scratches at quite a lot of important topics like the relatiosnship to one's parents, homophobia and transphobia in the '90s, the freedom of the theatre world and the struggles of a queer teen trying to find an identity between his Catholic family, his own values and his stage friends. And along the way he's trying to figure out this little thing called love. As a Broadway actor himself, Andrew Keenan-Bolger has managed to put the magic of the stage into words, giving a glimpse at the addicting spotlight and the wonders of performance art. It's a wonderful, beautiful story that moved me to goosebumps and tears. I'll definitely be reading this book again and again.