Up to This Pointe by Jennifer Longo

Up to This Pointe by Jennifer Longo

Harper and her best friend Kate have a plan. For years, they’ve been ballerinas. The plan is they are going to devote their life to ballet, audition for the San Francisco Ballet (where they live), and live their life as happy ballerinas. For that plan to succeed, they must give up everything else: boyfriends, delicious food, and even most other friends.

But when the book starts, the setting is Antarctica. Clearly, something has not gone according to the plan. Harper is preparing to spend the Antarctic winter at McMurdo Station, a scientific research facility on the ice.  It’s a great honor that few high school students have the opportunity to participate in, but it’s so far off the plan that we, as readers, have to wonder what could’ve gone that wrong that Harper left her best friend and her family half a world away.  That’s the central question that drives the plot, as the novel unfolds in alternating chapters between then and now.

Up to This Pointe is a story about finding yourself and coming to terms with your dreams, even when that means the unthinkable thought that you might not be able to meet the dreams you’ve worked for your entire life. It’s also about the enduring power of friendship and the soul crushing pain of heartbreak and betrayal.