Book Review: Behind the Sequins by Shirley Ballas

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

Kindle Edition of the book provided free of charge by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

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Strictly Come Dancing is one of those Saturday night guilty pleasures for me and I have grown to love the judges so was surprised when Len stepped down from being head judge. I hadn’t heard of Shirley Ballas before she joined Strictly as a judge so when I had the opportunity to review her autobiography I jumped at the chance.

I really enjoy reading autobiographies as they always provide an interesting insight to someone else’s life. Behind the Sequins is written in a way that means you can read it in Shirley Ballas’s voice and allows her personality to shine through the whole book.

In the early chapters of the book Shirley talks about growing up on an estate and the struggles of her family. She is clearly very appreciative of the support from her mother and brother particularly the hard work and dedication of her mother to give Shirley the opportunity to become one of the best dancers in the world. Although all of the credit can’t be given to her mother as although she gave her a great start to her dancing career the dedication, determination, and effort Shirley has put into her career really shines through when she explains the hurdles, she that she has gone through to achieve the things that she has.

It was also great to see that even though she was travelling a lot for her dancing career and spent a lot of time out of the UK she was able to maintain such close relationships with her Mum, brother, and son

The only thing that really disappointed me about this autobiography is that there were no pictures on the kindle edition which I read in comparison to what the physical version of an autobiography would usually have.

There were also some areas of her life in which Shirley seems to brush over and not go into as much detail compared to when she discusses other aspects of her life which is understandable as there is events in everyone’s life they wish to keep private.

Overall, this is an excellent book and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and gaining an insight into Shirley’s life. It also shows that if you put your mind to something you can achieve what you set your mind to.