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Discover Aly Raisman's inspiring story of dedication, perseverance, and learning to think positive even in the toughest times on her path to gold medal success in two Olympic Games - and beyond. Aly Raisman first stepped onto a gymnastics mat as a toddler in a "mommy and me" gymnastics class. No one could have predicted then that 16 years later, she'd be standing on an Olympic podium, having achieved her dreams.
In this searing and riveting New York Times best seller, Olympic gold medalist Dominique Moceanu reveals the dark underbelly of Olympic gymnastics, the true price of success…and the shocking secret about her past and her family that she only learned years later.
Simone Biles' entrance into the world of gymnastics may have started on a day-care field trip in her hometown of Spring, Texas, but her God-given talent, passion, and perseverance have made her one of the top gymnasts in the world as well as a four-time winner of Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro.
When she retired at age 19, Shannon Miller did so as one of the most recognizable gymnasts in the country. The winner of seven Olympic medals and the most decorated gymnast, male or female, in US history, Shannon tells a story of surviving and thriving. A shy, rambunctious girl raised in Oklahoma, Shannon fell in love with gymnastics at a young age and fought her way to the top.
At 16 years old, Laurie Hernandez has already made many of her dreams come true - yet it's only the beginning for this highly accomplished athlete. A Latina Jersey girl, Laurie saw her life take a dramatic turn last summer when she was chosen to be a part of the 2016 US Olympic gymnastics team. After winning gold in Rio as part of the Final Five, Laurie also earned an individual silver medal for her performance on the balance beam.
Twenty-year-old American gymnast Shawn Johnson is a four-time Olympic gold and silver medalist; a national- and world-champion athlete. Already a popular role model to all ages, in 2009 she captured the national spotlight again when she won on the widely popular Dancing with the Stars. Yet Shawn is no stranger to hard work and adversity.
Discover Aly Raisman's inspiring story of dedication, perseverance, and learning to think positive even in the toughest times on her path to gold medal success in two Olympic Games - and beyond. Aly Raisman first stepped onto a gymnastics mat as a toddler in a "mommy and me" gymnastics class. No one could have predicted then that 16 years later, she'd be standing on an Olympic podium, having achieved her dreams.
In this searing and riveting New York Times best seller, Olympic gold medalist Dominique Moceanu reveals the dark underbelly of Olympic gymnastics, the true price of success…and the shocking secret about her past and her family that she only learned years later.
Simone Biles' entrance into the world of gymnastics may have started on a day-care field trip in her hometown of Spring, Texas, but her God-given talent, passion, and perseverance have made her one of the top gymnasts in the world as well as a four-time winner of Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro.
When she retired at age 19, Shannon Miller did so as one of the most recognizable gymnasts in the country. The winner of seven Olympic medals and the most decorated gymnast, male or female, in US history, Shannon tells a story of surviving and thriving. A shy, rambunctious girl raised in Oklahoma, Shannon fell in love with gymnastics at a young age and fought her way to the top.
At 16 years old, Laurie Hernandez has already made many of her dreams come true - yet it's only the beginning for this highly accomplished athlete. A Latina Jersey girl, Laurie saw her life take a dramatic turn last summer when she was chosen to be a part of the 2016 US Olympic gymnastics team. After winning gold in Rio as part of the Final Five, Laurie also earned an individual silver medal for her performance on the balance beam.
Twenty-year-old American gymnast Shawn Johnson is a four-time Olympic gold and silver medalist; a national- and world-champion athlete. Already a popular role model to all ages, in 2009 she captured the national spotlight again when she won on the widely popular Dancing with the Stars. Yet Shawn is no stranger to hard work and adversity.
For 15 years and 35 seasons, the Bachelor franchise has been a mainstay in American TV viewers' lives. Since it premiered in 2002, the show's popularity and relevance has only grown - more than eight million viewers tuned in to see the conclusion of the most recent season of The Bachelor. The iconic reality television show's reach and influence into the cultural zeitgeist is undeniable. Bachelor Nation is the first behind-the-scenes, unauthorized look into the reality television phenomenon.
In the 2012 London Olympics, US gymnast Gabrielle Douglas stole hearts and flew high as the All-Around Gold Medal winner, as well as acting as a critical member of the US gold-medal-winning women gymnastics team. In this personal autobiography, Gabrielle tells her story of faith, perseverance, and determination, demonstrating you can reach your dreams if you let yourself soar.
How far will you go to achieve a dream? That's the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter, Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits - until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community, and everything they have worked so hard for is suddenly at risk.
Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism.
An insider exposes the shocking facts deliberately left out of the hit Netflix series Making a Murderer - and argues persuasively that Steven Avery was rightfully convicted in the 2005 killing of Teresa Halbach.
Always seeking to be an obedient Priesthood girl, in her teens Rebecca Musser became the nineteenth wife of her people's prophet: 85-year-old Rulon Jeffs. Finally sickened by the abuse she suffered and saw around her, she pulled off a daring escape and sought to build a new life and family.
Anna Kendrick's autobiographical collection of essays amusingly recounts memorable moments throughout her life, from her middle-class upbringing in New England to the blockbuster movies that have made her one of Hollywood's most popular actresses today. Expanding upon the witty and ironic dispatches for which she is known, Anna Kendrick's essays offer her one-of-a-kind commentary on the absurdities she's experienced on her way to and from the heart of pop culture.
In this searing memoir of survival in the spirit of Stolen Innocence, the daughter of Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed Prophet of the FLDS Church, takes you deep inside the secretive polygamist Mormon fundamentalist cult run by her family and how she escaped it. Born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Rachel Jeffs was raised in a strict patriarchal culture defined by subordinate sister wives and men they must obey.
Maude Julien's parents were fanatics who believed it was their sacred duty to turn her into the ultimate survivor - raising her in isolation and subjecting her to endless drills designed to "eliminate weakness." She endured a life without heat, hot water, adequate food, friendship, or any kind of affectionate treatment. But Maude's parents could not rule her inner life. Befriending the animals on the lonely estate as well as the characters in the novels she read in secret, young Maude nurtured in herself the compassion and love that her parents forbid as weak.
The definitive account of the O. J. Simpson trial, The Run of His Life is a prodigious feat of reporting that could have been written only by the foremost legal journalist of our time. First published less than a year after the infamous verdict, Jeffrey Toobin's nonfiction masterpiece tells the whole story, from the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman to the ruthless gamesmanship behind the scenes of "the trial of the century".
From the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, a captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most underappreciated forces: shame. 'It's about the terror, isn't it?' 'The terror of what?' I said. 'The terror of being found out.' For the past three years, Jon Ronson has travelled the world meeting recipients of high-profile public shamings. The shamed are people like us - people who, say, made a joke on social media that came out badly, or made a mistake at work.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find yourself strapped to a giant rocket that's about to go from zero to 17,500 miles per hour? Or to look back on Earth from outer space and see the surprisingly precise line between day and night? Or to stand in front of the Hubble Space Telescope, wondering if the emergency repair you're about to make will inadvertently ruin humankind's chance to unlock the universe's secrets? Mike Massimino has been there, and in Spaceman he puts you inside the suit.
It was the team finals of women's gymnastics in the 2012 Olympics, and McKayla Maroney was on top of her game. The 16-year-old US gymnast was performing arguably the best vault of all time, launching herself unimaginably high into the air and sticking a flawless landing. When her score came, many were baffled: 16.233. Three-tenths of a point stood between her and a perfect score. If that vault wasn't perfection, what was?
For years gymnastics was scored on a 10.0 scale. When this scoring system caused major judging controversies at the 2004 Olympics, international elite gymnastics made the switch to the open-ended scoring system it uses today, forever altering the sport in the process.
Gymnastics insider Dvora Meyers examines the evolution of elite women's gymnastics over the last few decades. With insight, flair, and a boundless love for the sport, Meyers answers questions that gymnastics fans have been asking since the last perfect score was handed out over 20 years ago. She reveals why successful female gymnasts are older and more athletic than they have ever been before, how the United States became a gymnastics powerhouse, and what the future of gymnastics will hold.
Great book, unbiased and thorough. Good information from the inception of the sport to the near present, and not just about the Americans.
Huge issues to name pronunciation though! It's spelled Martha but we all know it's pronounced Marta... and sometimes name pronunciations would change from sentence to sentence, like Iordache and Peszek. Real killer on the ears. But I wouldn't let that deter you from listening... it's really a good read, just be prepared.
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Meyer's history of gymnastic's iconic score and the development of the sport in the US will change any lay viewer into a super fan. The insightful book covers everything from the first ten to the NCAA collegiate system. I've admittedly listened to the book three times now, but find it fresh and entertaining each time. With the exception of some mispronunciation of names, the performance is stellar. I would highly recommend for anyone, regardless of their gymnastics background.
The book goes into a very technical discussion at the beginning. also, it seems like everything had been covered in the first 4 chapters, but then goes into other areas which are related to the perfect 10 score.
I thought I knew quite a bit about gymnastics until I listened to this book. Fantastic. It's informative and entertaining. If you are looking to learn some history about gymnastics, this is definitely the book for you.
The narrator does the authors work a disservice in my opinion. She consistently mispronounces athletes' names making many of them unrecognizable. Furthermore she sounds like a computerized voice or a robot. Too bad because the book is pretty good.
I've always loved gymnastics and figure skating so seeing this right before the Olympic trials seemed like a great thing to listen to leading up to that event. I really liked it a lot and as a casual fan of gymnastics I also learned a lot about the sport. I could see how serious fans of gymnastics wouldn't get the same out of this book that I did but it also doesn't seem to be written for that audience either. I read another comment complaining about pop culture references made frequently in the book, but as they were written to help lay-people (like me) understand the evolving sport in a relatable way I found them useful for the most part. The only thing I would add to the print edition is a list of performances to watch on YouTube as I found myself frequently stopping the book to go and YouTube specific performances and gymnasts to have any idea what was being referenced in the book, and I'm glad I did! I was born well after the Nadia years and had no idea who the author was talking about when she referenced any athlete or coach before the 1996 magnificent seven years (with the exception of Nadia and Mary Lou of course!). Overall a very enjoyable listen, I will probably listen again at some point as there was really quite a bit discussed!