Publication Date: June 23, 2020
Publisher: Atria Books
Rating: ★★★
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.
Review:
Thank you Hannah Orenstein, Atria Books & NetGalley for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
As a former gymnast, I was very excited to read this book. When I say former gymnast, I mean when I was 5 and had all of the aspirations of being an Olympian one day. Obviously, that never happened, but I was very into the idea of this kind of book. A romance mixed with a gymnastics twist? Sign me up.
This was my first Hannah Orenstein novel and I enjoyed it. There were some things about the writing that I was a little bit unsure of, but it overall was a cute story.
The story was a overtaken with gymnastics. I love gymnastics, but that was really the main focus of this novel. I am a romance novel lover, and I was looking forward to having the romance surrounding the gymnastics since that’s what this book was classified as. There was a hard time with me trying to merge the two plots of gymnastics and romance.
I appreciated the hard sides of gymnastics and reading about how hard it is to become an Olympian. I liked reading about the different characters and how interesting their lives with gymnastics was.
I also appreciated Hannah Orenstein including harsh topics like depression from losing a dream and the issues that come from emotional abuse from a relationship. I think that this was a very important part of this novel.
Overall, this novel was pretty good. I gave it a 3 star rating because it was right in the middle for me. It wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t terrible. I would consider this book more of a contemporary fiction, not a contemporary romance. If you like gymnastics, I’d definitely pick this one up.
Lacey's Library 