Up to this Pointe

Harper and her best friend planned to join the San Francisco Ballet. But when things don't go according to plan, Harper finds herself on an Antarctic research base. Chapters alternately relate Harper's time in Antarctica and, beginning "140 days ago," events leading to her current situation. Lighter subplots, including one involving a rival beaux, temper the poignancy of this affecting novel.

Harper Scott and her best friend Kate always planned to graduate early from high school and join the San Francisco Ballet company. In Harper's mind, "If you...dedicate your entire life to what you truly love and put all you have into it...it is, in fact, impossible that it will not happen." But things don't always go according to plan, particularly in the hyper-competitive world of ballet-which is why, when we first meet Harper, she's on a research base in Antarctica, not rehearsing with the San Francisco Ballet. First-person, present-tense chapters alternately relate what's happening now in Antarctica and, beginning "140 days ago" in San Francisco, the events that led up to Harper's current situation. Harper's grief, shock, and profound homesickness are immediate and wrenching as she slowly reveals the painful truth of what happened, which involves betrayal by Kate and, in Harper's mind, by ballet itself. Harper's temporary Antarctic life is evoked with as much vivid, fascinating detail as her "second home," the ballet studio. Two subplots, involving Harper's rival beaux and a hallucination-producing thyroid disorder (resulting in pep talks from the ghost of explorer Ernest Shackleton), provide enough romance and lightheartedness to temper the poignancy. An affecting, memorable examination of disappointment and loss. katie bircher