Up to This Pointe

A really good book about growing up and finding new goals when the one you thought you were working toward turns out to be unachievable.

Personal anecdote: I am not athletic. I'm uncoordinated with fine motor coordination difficulties and gym class was a horror. Some time ago, I was sitting across a dinner table from a guest who was trying to give me a pep talk. "Don't give up. If you really work at it, you'll could be really good." This guy didn't know me; we'd only just met. But he'd decided that I was a quitter, when the reality was that there were plenty of things I could do really well but athletic activities? Not among them.

Reading this book, Harper Scott read like someone who had taken a leaf from that dinner guest's playbook. Her determination shone on the page. The hours of practice and dedication, her time teaching dance to children to raise the money for ballet school, the absence of a social life, the surgery... But finally, she has to admit that the dream she's been working toward isn't to be hers. Not because she's 'lazy', 'unmotivated' 'tore a tendon in a freak accident right before a big audition' or 'just didn't try hard enough'. Because she doesn't have the right body type.

This book is about finding a new path when the one you thought you were on comes to a dead end. Even if you feel you need to run away to Antarctica to do it.