Pointe by Brandy Colbert (review)

As the only two black kids in their Chicago suburb, Theodora and Donovan were inseparable. Then thirteen-year-old Theo began to date Trent, an older guy, and when she and Trent started having sex, Donovan was excluded from their relationship. Trent suddenly dropped out of touch, though, and when a couple of weeks later Donovan disappeared, Theo was doubly devastated. A talented ballet dancer, she developed an eating disorder and went into treatment, but her grief over the loss of Trent and Donovan remains the defining center of her life. Now it’s four years later, and Donovan has been returned home; he refuses to talk, but Theo recognizes his kidnapper as the guy she knew as Trent. Did Trent really love her, or was he just using her to get to Donovan, and did Donovan leave with him voluntarily? While the plot is a bit raw for the typical ballet-book reader, the various elements here guarantee multiple interest points for fans of the problem novel, the most interesting being the way Theo ever so slowly comes to understand how naïve she was at thirteen, how skewed her ideas of sex and love still are, and how the legacy of Trent’s abuse continues to haunt her decision-making. The response of the community to Donovan’s reappearance is as real as it is frustrating; because he is a boy abducted by a man, and because video surfaces that shows him happily interacting with other boys his age, there is little sympathy for his ordeal and his status as victim is questioned, even when well-meaning teachers attempt to explain. The book chooses Theo’s understanding rather than Donovan’s experience as a culminating moment, but since the story is focused on her recovery, that understanding is enough of a spur toward doing the right thing for both ethical validity and narrative closure.