About the Book
The past seven years have been hard on Avery Abrams: After training her entire life to make the Olympic gymnastics team, a disastrous performance ended her athletic career for good. Her best friend and teammate, Jasmine, went on to become an Olympic champion, then committed the ultimate betrayal by marrying their emotionally abusive coach, Dimitri.
Now, reeling from a breakup with her football star boyfriend, Avery returns to her Massachusetts hometown, where new coach Ryan asks her to help him train a promising young gymnast with Olympic aspirations. Despite her misgivings and worries about the memories it will evoke, Avery agrees. Back in the gym, she’s surprised to find sparks flying with Ryan. But when a shocking scandal in the gymnastics world breaks, it has shattering effects not only for the sport but also for Avery and her old friend Jasmine.
My Review
I had so much fun with this book for a variety of reasons. I’m a big fan of gymnastics, and it’s one of my favorite sports to watch in the Olympics, so to get this behind the scenes look of what really goes on and how the athletes train and prepare for such a momentous event was thrilling for me. It’s also a chick lit style read which is a favorite of mine, and included plenty of funny, heartwarming and feel good moments along the way. I also appreciated that it touched on deeper subjects, with the #MeToo movement and the ugly realities that female gymnasts have endured. There was romance and friendship troubles and personal growth, and maybe the best yet – an alternate reality to the 2020 we are living. I won’t lie, I started to feel some anxiety come on as we moved into March 2020 in the book, because I know what our real March looked like. And one of my favorite lines from the book was when a character chose the hotel room 2020 – for good luck. You bet I shared that paragraph on my Instagram stories so we could all get a chuckle. A perfect escape and one I highly recommend for your reading list.
5 stars
