Dance with Me is a television tie-in book for the NBC series American Dreams that ran from 2002-2005. The show starred Brittany Snow and Vanessa Lengies and Meg Pryor and Roxanne Bojarski, two best friends who are growing up in the sixties and dancing on American Bandstand. The show also followed the lives of Meg's family and the family of one of Meg's father's co-workers.
The book starts where the pilot episode of the series began: Meg and Roxanne standing in line, wishing and hoping that they will be picked to dance on American Bandstand that day. When it seems hopeless, they hop on the bus and race home in time to watch the show on television in the Pryor house. The book follows Meg's adventures through life, love, family, and friendship. She develops an interest in boys, and a new popularity status at East Catholic High School.
For those who were not fans of the television series, this young adult book is a fun, fast read. For fans of the show, the book may serve some problems. The book follows the whole first season of episodes, with each episode getting about a chapter length in prose. But what you find is that the book is solely focused on Meg and causes confusion. The television show took twists and turns to explore the issues that each person in the whole family dealt with. For the book, this is not the case. While reading the book, if Meg wasn't there, you won't get to read about it.
For example, you never knew why JJ stayed out all night and didn't get in trouble for it, or how Helen and Jack battle out issues. It makes for a very choppy read if you remember what happened in season one. (And with the first season DVDs still running at $89.90 a pop, I'd suggest springing for the books if you just can't wait any longer to explore American Dreams again.)
The only other problem with this book, since it's a young adult book, I thought it should have focused on Roxanne as well, but it didn't. Sometimes even her stories are a little cut up from the TV series because if Meg wasn't there, we can't be there either.
I recommend this book to anyone who loves the 1960's and doesn't mind reading a little young adult fiction. Fans of the show may be able to enjoy it as well, especially if the rest of the book series answers questions that the television series left hanging when it was pulled off the air last year.
