Name: Pointe, Claw
ISBN: 9781467775915

Amber J. Keyser

"After eight years of separation childhood best friends are reunited. One is studying to be a professional ballerina, the other has a rare disease that is rapidly taking its toll"--

Pointe, Claw

Laura

For some reason, I've always been draw to ballet. I've never danced ballet beyond a Parks and Rec program, but I find ballet to be so classically beautiful and, well, elegant, everything I love. Degas is one of my favorite painters, because of it. So I picked up Pointe, Claw, because it reminded me of several other YA ballet books that, well, I didn't like per say, but it seemed like a safe pick. 

Right away, I could tell that Keyser takes herself way too seriously. I got this impression from both the summary and the author bio in the back, in which she told us exactly what she was trying to do with the book, which was apparently trying to answer some philosophical question nobody really cares about. That struck me as a slightly narcissistic move, like she was trying to show off how smart she was even though she's writing a YA novel about sick kids and ballerinas, which is more common than you'd think it is (like Maybe One Day and Side Effects May Vary).

And the book does come across as a vanity project. The abstract prose and open, slightly confusing ending just came across as the author majorly feeling herself and her intelligence. I mean, the writing's very pretty, I'll give her that, but also screams of pretension. The narrative style and characters made me think Keyser was trying to be Wintergirls-era Laurie Halse Anderson, but Wintergirls was a more successful novel because Anderson seemed more genuine and like she wasn't writing the book because she wanted to show off her brain. I'm starting to also think Keyser really wants to be Anais Nin, what with the abstract and erotic nature of her prose.

I feel like a big part of what Keyser was also trying to do in this novel is shock people. She wanted to write a controversial novel involving female sexuality, and none of those parts honestly felt genuine either. The constant references to masturbation and sex and strippers felt like a little kid who just learned how to swear, so he drops f-bombs left and right to try and get a rise out of people. Eh. I suppose in that respect it's very avant garde of her. Shocking for the sake of being shocking, amiright? Seriously though, it got to the point where I could have a fucking drinking game for every time masturbation is brought up and it's mentioned in the oddest of places, like Keyser always has to remind us girls do it too. 

Continue reading this review on my blog here: 
https://bookwormbasics.blogspot.com/2...

Pointe, Claw

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