★ 02/10/2014
Theo Cartwright, from one of the few black families in a predominantly white Chicago suburb, lives for ballet, and she’s destined for stardom on stage. When her childhood best friend Donovan—who disappeared four years earlier at age 13—resurfaces, Theo’s life is upended. Debut novelist Colbert has written an extraordinary book about dance, seamlessly intertwined with the chilling aftermath of a kidnapping. In honest, confident prose, Colbert builds characters whose flaws, struggles, and bad decisions make them real and indelibly memorable. Theo may be a gifted and driven dancer, but she’s also still a 17-year-old who can shut down a smug classmate with an acid remark, drinks and smokes with her friends, became sexually involved with an older guy at 13 (and never really thought of it as rape), is keeping an eating disorder in check, and carries heavy secrets about her connection to Donovan’s disappearance. Colbert gives all her characters similar depth (including the pianist/school drug dealer Theo is drawn to, even though he has a girlfriend), and it’s this complexity and empathy that set this gripping story apart. Ages 14–up. Agent: Tina Wexler, ICM. (Apr.)
We’re living in a YA golden age, with loads of diverse, funny, smart, sad, joyous, illuminating books hitting the shelves each week. We all have a list of books that comforted us, exhilarated us, and even saved us when we were teen readers, those fortuitous bookstore and library finds that spoke directly to our budding brains. But with the benefit […]
Ballet is notoriously elegant, beautiful, and deceptively delicate, but those with more intimate knowledge of the dance know that inside those pristine pointe shoes lie blisters and blood. The best insider looks at ballet exemplify the way training and performance push the dancers to their limits, working them as hard as any athletes while demanding […]
It’s a dark reality of the world that no one waits until you’re “old enough” to deal with trauma, and to represent in YA literature the effects of childhood abduction is something that must be done with care, sensitivity, nuance, and great skill. While some of these titles are told from the perspective of the abducted […]
I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I’m snuggling up on my couch and getting ready for a marathon reading session, I’ll spend a little too much time trying to figure out what record to put on. Do I put on a playlist? Is this more of a pop-punk book, or does it require a […]
If, like me, you’re a child of a Certain Decade, there’s a good chance you grew up reading Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitters Club series, about a group of thirteen-year-old girls (later joined by some younger girls plus a guy) who start a…actually, the series title is really self-explanatory. Although we were blessed with this delightful series, alas, […]