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Title: All the Sundays Yet to Come: A Skater's Journey by Kathryn Bertine ISBN: 0-316-09901-5 Publisher: Little, Brown Pub. Date: November, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.69 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Inspirational
Comment: In her autobiographical first book, All the Sundays Yet to Come, Kathryn Bertine tells the story of how she, once a competitive figure skater performing at the highest levels in the sport, willingly went down the dark alley of anorexia in order to keep her dreams of athletic stardom alive. Bertine recounts the loneliness of her privileged childhood in upstate New York and how she found warmth, acceptance, and room for personal growth at the local ice rink, a semi-enclosed structure where she froze under layers of spandex while training her body and conditioning her mind. It was at the ice rink that she met and nurtured her marvelous alter-ego, Captain Graceful-a superhero for a female athlete, who embodied her goals of strength, poise, resilience, and panache.
Bertine writes about the highs and lows of her life with humor and honesty. She skillfully interweaves her days as a teenage athlete with the harsh realities she found on the professional skating circuit in Europe and South America, showing without reserve how an unexamined dream can become a nightmare. Bertine's story recounts the trauma associated with life in an ice show--the degrading weekly weigh-ins that undermined her fragile self-esteem and led her into a life-threatening eating disorder, the bizarre costumes and frivolous routines that trivialized the years she spent training as a competitive skater, and the internal politics and dubious practices of the shows, which included confiscating and locking up skaters' passports and visas and giving preferential treatment to eastern European skaters because their work visas were cheaper than those of their American and Canadian counterparts.
And then there are the other skaters. Bertine writes of those who were also chasing their own private dreams, like her best friend from England whose sparkling humor and loyalty anchored Bertine and gave her the courage to try to escape from the show when she was at her lowest point. She writes of those who were caught on the crazy merry-go-round of show business and didn't know how to get off, like the Canadian soloist who was afraid to leave to visit his dying mother because he didn't want the show to replace him.
An inspirational look at one athlete's journey, All the Sundays Yet to Come is a wonderful book by a remarkable athlete and gifted writer.
Rating: 4
Summary: Balances on a thin edge
Comment: I am not normally a fan of memoirs of difficult childhoods, wherein authors scan their lives to find external causes for the difficulties they've faced. And what the heck does a twentysomething have to fill a memoir anyway? Even with all that, I found this book to be well worth buying and reading.
This book has very funny and very powerful writing in it, sometimes simultaneously. She is a good story-teller, and the book was very hard to put down. Most importantly, Bertine does a great job, in my opinion, of balancing on the thin line between thoughtful analysis of her life and the people in it and self-indulgent blaming.
At several points throughout the book, just when I was sure the author was going to spiral into the self-indulgent, and that I was going to have to put the book down with a groan, Bertine turned on herself, pointedly describing her own shortcomings and their source within her own self, making me realize that this book was not written about her family, or her home town, or "the seamy underbelly of the figure skating world", but is, in fact, Bertine's story of how she got to know herself.
Rating: 5
Summary: Beneath the surface
Comment: On the surface this book is a memoir of a figure skater who does not make it to the Olympics; who instead ends up in a second rate ice show touring South America in sequins and feathers and animal costumes. Her colorful accounts of the tour and her stories of how she got there (fish out of water growing up in a wealthy New England suburb, 4 am practice sessions, her controlling mother, her bipolar brother) are hilarious yet honest in a David Sedaris kind of way. Beneath the surface, however, is a very powerful and profound story.
I really couldn't put this book down, primarily due to the author's voice: her passion, her courage, her honesty. Mostly I loved her skillful and subtle transition from zany stories about crazy characters and wild experiences to her painfully honest account of how obsessiveness and the need to be successful led her down a frightening path of self-destruction--and, fortunately, her journey back again.
I really loved this book because it was witty and fun and it also made me think and feel. I could relate to a lot which kept me connected and it also had plenty of unique stories that I found interesting and entertaining. An important book for anyone who has ever felt different, was willing to sacrifice nearly everything in order to succeed, or has felt the need to escape their reality, and in running so far away ended up finding themselves.
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Title: The Second Mark: Courage, Corruption, and the Battle for Olympic Gold by Joy Goodwin ISBN: 074324527X Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Culture on Ice: Figure Skating & Cultural Meaning by Ellyn Kestnbaum ISBN: 081956642X Publisher: Wesleyan University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Murder on Ice by Alina Adams ISBN: 0425193071 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 04 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Bronxville Book Club by PamelaHackett Hobson ISBN: 0595283519 Publisher: iUniverse Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Frozen Assets: The New Order of Figure Skating by Mark A. Lund, Mark Lund ISBN: 0972140204 Publisher: Ashton International Media Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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