A review by raebrock
The Turning Pointe by Vanessa L. Torres

4.0

The first 10% of The Turing Pointe drove me nuts with the excessive celebrity worship, one of my least favorite tropes. However, once the author really got into the lives of the characters, I couldn't put it down! This book was devastating yet hopeful, which is not easy to pull off. I felt for all of the characters, each with their own tragedies they were trying to move past. Torres touched on so many social issues that are still there today but were made more poignant by 1980's setting: The AIDS epidemic, gender and sexuality, police brutality, racism, the lives of immigrants in different generations, familial upheaval and trauma, physical disability, and more. Some played a bigger role than others. I've read books before that covered too many topics which can make a book feel so bogged down with the issues its trying to cover that the plot suffers. However, these issues flowed seamlessly into the plot of The Turning Pointe - the story existed in a society where these issues also existed but the story was still the story and it was powerful and beautiful and I loved it.