I could not put this book down. But not because I was dying to find out what happens next (because we know the outcome at the beginning of the book). I had to keep reading because this book blew me away about what really goes on behind the scenes. I think we all have an idea of what it's like to be an elite gymnast, but to have it told in a story like this is really wild!
Publisher's Weekly review:
Sey writes of her career in internationally competitive gymnastics, which culminated when she won the 1986 U.S. national championship at age 17. From the start Sey was an underdog, ever the second-best athlete on the team hoping to prove herself with tenacity and toughness. She endured numerous injuries—including a broken femur, which could have ended her career—as well as an eating disorder, depression, isolation and tremendous strain on her family. With each new sacrifice that her parents and brother made to support her, the stakes crept higher, inuring them all to gymnastics' inherent physical and psychological trauma. After claiming the U.S. title, Sey was shell-shocked and exhausted, suddenly robbed of her lifelong motivation. I'd always been a fighter, a come-from-behind girl. Now that I was on top, the battle would be unwinnable. The memoir's poignant glimpses at Sey's adult struggle to reckon with her past are regrettably sparse, and her prose occasionally lapses into wordiness, but overall, she has written a courageous story befitting a comeback kid—a timely release for the 2008 Olympics.
Basically, we read about Jennifer Sey's journey to becoming an elite gymnast, and ultimately a National Champ in 1986. We learn about the politics of gymnastics, the various clubs that girls join to help them climb the ranks (for whatever reason, I had no idea that they had clubs to join), how brutal coaches are, the role her parents played in her gymnastics career, and of course the physical aspects of training so hard.
The best way that I can describe this book is a lot like Natalie Portman's mindset in the movie, Black Swan. Jennifer Sey grew up in the gymnastics world never feeling good enough and always striving for perfection and approval of her coaches. She always saw herself as second-best. Because of this, she grew up under an extreme amount of pressure. But the interesting part is that Jennifer CHOSE this lifestyle. She was a very ambitious little girl who obsessively wanted to prove herself. Kudos to her for pushing herself to her limit and following her dreams, but at the same time - I wish she could have been a normal little girl.
Her parents did everything they could to ensure that Jennifer had the best options to her available at all times (this included driving 2 hours to/from practices, allowing her to live with another family so she wasn't far from the gym, etc.) I think that's great! But it was interesting to read how sucked into it her parents became as she grew older and more successful. Her parents never seemed like the obsessive stage parents you see on shows like "Toddlers and Tiaras," but when she wanted to quit the sport - it caused a lot of strife in the family, so there was obviously some kind of stage parenting going on. While I was reading the book, I wanted to be mad at her parents for not opening their eyes and seeing Jennifer's destructive behavior - but at the same time, I could almost (but not really) empathize with them because they gave so much up for her to get where she was.
The coaches are no joke. Once she joined the Parkettes (gymnastics club), the coaches were brutal. They were obsessed with weight and and twice daily weigh-ins. And if a girl was a pound or two over the limit, they were berated publicly. There was one instance where a girl needed to lose 2lbs, and the owner of the gym got on a PA and told everyone that this little girl was going to be fat like her mother (who was in the gym at the time and was morbidly obese). They also strictly managed the girls' diets with their parents or whoever the girls lived with. And then they pushed them physically. Jennifer described a stretching move that one coach performed on her that eventually tore her hamstring. As much as I wanted this side of gymnastics to be surprising, it really wasn't.
All of this pressure (from herself, her coaches, her parents) manifested into some pretty terrible habits for Jennifer. She developed a nasty eating disorder, she picked her fingers/cuticles until they bled and developed sores, and chewed the inside of her mouth raw. And of course, there's the fact that all of the dieting messed with her body enough that she did not start her period until she was 20 yrs old.
At the end of the book, Jennifer says how much she misses the sport and how she loved it, but it blows me away that she stuck with the sport for as long as she did. Jennifer ultimately ended up winning the National Championship title in 1986, but dropped out of the sport before the next round of Olympics. BTW- that's not a spoiler alert...we learn this the first chapter.
Overall, the book was really good and extremely thought provoking. I think it will be something that I carry with me for a while and certainly stick in the back of my head every time I watch gymnastics. There were times that the book was a little wordy and I couldn't figure out in my head the move she was describing, but that's okay with me because the story was really interesting.
(This really makes me want to read a book by someone I watched on TV like Dominique Moceanu, Kim Zmeskal, or even Kerri Strug.)
Ranking: B
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