Book Review: Pointe by Brandy Colbert

Pointe
Author: Brandy Colbert
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary
Released: April 10th 2014
Review Source: Penguin

Theo is better now.

She's eating again, dating guys who are almost appropriate, and well on her way to becoming an elite ballet dancer. But when her oldest friend, Donovan, returns home after spending four long years with his kidnapper, Theo starts reliving memories about his abduction—and his abductor.

Donovan isn't talking about what happened, and even though Theo knows she didn't do anything wrong, telling the truth would put everything she's been living for at risk. But keeping quiet might be worse.

Okay, so this book was definitely a book I had to sit down and digest for a while, something that I had to sit back and say what did I just read? The story was amazing though; gut wrenching and gritty at times but something that is very realistic. Pointe follows Theo who has overcome heartbreak, an eating disorder, and her best friend being abducted, but when her best friend (Donavon) returns very dark memories being to resurface.

So we’ve got Theo who is working hard at taking her ballet career to a professional level and getting her life back on track. When Theo was thirteen she had a boyfriend that had left her without any warning and just disappeared, after her boyfriend disappeared she went into a depression. Around the same time her boyfriend left her best friend was abducted and everything began to spiral down and Theo winds up with a severe eating disorder. Now that four years have passed and Theo is doing better, eating better, dating semi-better guys, and then everything changes. This book is filled with gut wrenching and heart breaking scenarios that Theo has to overcome and at 17 years old that can be tough. Theo is a character I absolutely loved reading about, she was real, I could feel her through the pages, and though there were times I wanted to shaker her, I wouldn’t want her any other way. She was a real teen going through some really rough stuff for her age and she had her faults, her strengths and she was just someone that was completely relatable and got you completely enthralled in her story.

I would most definitely recommend this book, it was a beautiful story with real gritty truth to it, but I would have to say to keep the audience to a mature young adult, some content could be graphic.