When her friends express concern over her obviously disordered eating, she rolls her eyes at them. We want so much to be on her side, that it takes significant effort to break rank with her. She isn’t a willfully unreliable narrator she just lives in confident denial.Īs the story goes on, Theo’s interpretation of reality seems less and less accurate, and yet, she has such force of character that we want to keep believing her. She claims she’s fine with Donovan’s return, which we are tempted to believe, until we watch her slowly unravel. She tells us food is no longer an issue but she agonizes over a meager portion of lentils. Theo is written with such strength of narrative voice that readers will trust her implicitly even when we can sense that she isn’t telling us everything. Colbert keeps her cards close, sparingly dealing out clues in gorgeously wrought prose and leading us along with expert pacing and stunning realism. We discover that Theo and Donovan were the only two people of color in a predominantly white school they were immediately close but something happened between them just before Donovan’s abduction that drastically changed their friendship. Readers will be swept along, hungering for more of Theo’s story, but Colbert isn’t quick to satisfy that hunger. Once Donovan is rescued from his abductor, however, Theo is forced to confront the horror of his experience, the extent of the damage done, and what may be her own possible complicity in the kidnapping.Ĭolbert’s portrait of high school is one of the most authentic I’ve read, and it’s impossible not to get caught up in the details of Theo’s life.
She has supportive parents, and is developing an exciting flirtation with Hosea, the handsome new accompanist for her ballet class. A gifted dancer and clever student, Theo has a bright future.
The abduction of her best friend, Donovan, four years earlier has left her scarred and traumatized, but the book begins with its protagonist apparently on the mend.
Pointe tells the story of Theo, a junior in high school, a ballerina, and a recovering anorexic. Brandy Colbert’s Pointe, however, is an exception it is the rare novel that is both nourishing and impossible to put down. These are not usually the “vegetables” of literature - books that are thematically intricate, that raise complicated issues and make us think. We cross busy streets with our eyes still on the page. We ignore our loved ones just to keep reading. We secret them behind geometry textbooks. SOME BOOKS make us wild to find out what happens next.
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