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Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams
Updated with a New Introduction
Fanciful dreams of becoming the next Nadia Comaneci led Jennifer Sey to become a gymnast at the age of six. Her early success propelled her family to sacrifice everything to help her become, by age 11, one of America’s elite. But as she set her sights higher and higher, Jennifer began to change, setting her needs, her health, and her well-being aside in the name of winning. And the adults in her life refused to notice her downward spiral.
Now, Sey reveals the tarnish beneath her gold medals. A powerful portrait of intensity and drive, eating disorders and stage parents, abusive coaches and manipulative businessmen, Chalked Up is the story of a young girl whose dreams would become subsumed by the adults around her.
Fanciful dreams of becoming the next Nadia Comaneci led Jennifer Sey to become a gymnast at the age of six. Her early success propelled her family to sacrifice everything to help her become, by age 11, one of America’s elite. But as she set her sights higher and higher, Jennifer began to change, setting her needs, her health, and her well-being aside in the name of winning. And the adults in her life refused to notice her downward spiral.
Now, Sey reveals the tarnish beneath her gold medals. A powerful portrait of intensity and drive, eating disorders and stage parents, abusive coaches and manipulative businessmen, Chalked Up is the story of a young girl whose dreams would become subsumed by the adults around her.
292 pages, Hardcover
First published April 22, 2008
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November 9, 2011
Well, that was horrifying. I don't think I'll ever be able to watch a gymnastics routine without feeling a little sick to my stomach. I've never thought much about the sport, except watching the Olympic competitions every four years with mild interest -- and probably only if nothing else was on television at that. I never thought about how young the female competitors are or what happens to the ones past their prime, at the ripe old age of nineteen or twenty. Many athletic careers just begin to pick up steam at nineteen or twenty, but for a female gymnast it's all over. Maybe it was naive for me not to think about the girls and how old they are or where they end up after. While reading the end I certainly felt like the little kid who gets told Fido is living on a farm upstate and is horrified to realize as an adult this story probably wasn't true.
Jennifer Sey tells a very honest story about her gymnastics career. She holds nothing back when she speaks about former coaches. I have no doubt that she was truthful in her descriptions because there were long moments where I didn't like Jennifer herself. It never read like she was demonizing other people to make herself look better, just to say how it was and why it was. The only person I felt any consistent sympathy for in the book was Jennifer's brother, Chris, who was dragged along like luggage for most of her career.
As a child, Jennifer showed personality traits (cough*issues*cough) that laid most of the ground work for her gymnastics career. She was a perfectionist from a young age, ambitious, focused, intelligent, and extremely obsessive. All of this could have been channeled in healthier ways, but she set herself on the gymnastics route and no one ever stopped to consider all the better things she could've done with that personality mix. I do mean better. Gymnastics is a brutal path with a short career and it requires the sacrificing of almost every important rite of passage from childhood to young adulthood.
Her career started out innocently enough, with the equivalent of training at a local place mostly meant to go as far as state competitions and no further. The more promise Jennifer showed the more willing her parents became in investing in her career, including long commutes and moving multiple times. It's easy for the reader to see where her parents thought they were doing the right thing -- they were often horrified by the things other parent allowed their coaches to do to children, but it was their job to redirect her focus and make sure she lived a more balanced life.
For awhile her parents manage to keep it in a sort of gray area. Sure, Jennifer only got at best half a high school experience, but they found a gym that was more supportive than most. Yeah, she never went to high school dances or had friends outside the circuit, but for awhile she had a coach who didn't believe in daily weigh ins and thought the focus should be on the child as a whole and not just a short lived gymnastics career. They might have succeeded in giving Jennifer some sort of balanced life if the girl hadn't pushed herself and everyone else so hard -- and if they had ever managed to tell her no.
Determined to win, Jennifer deliberately entered hell where she was forced to weigh in twice a day, where the coaches yell and curse and occasionally hit girls, where the aches and pains of her battered body must be ignored so she can push, push, push. She becomes a Packette where she witnesses a coach throw a chair at a girl, another coach announce a child will end up just like her heavy mother for a two pound weight gain (announces it over the LOUDSPEAKER), and adult male coaches spend a little too much alone time in hotel rooms with underage girls.
Every bite Jennifer ate as a Packette was scrutinized by the people around her, other girls and the coach she temporarily boarded with. She was a little bit too big at 90 pounds and positively fat at 107 pounds. (She was five foot three inches tall.) Her body fought her to gain weight, to mature and grow, and she starved herself into a size that could fly through the air. No one said anything about long term health effects. Dieticians simply recommended the girls stop eating altogether at times.
It was a terrible story to read and there's no real happy ending with her career. Jennifer wins one big award and places amongst the seven girls to try for it again the next year, but by then her body is too bruised and battered to carry on. Her career ends not in a bang but a whimper as she lies on a floor mat realizing she'll never make the triumphant come back her mother wants her to make. She goes to college wit the air of heading to a retirement home and after a few months there finally gains enough weight to menstruate for the first time in her life. She's nineteen years old and has no idea how to use a tampon. Another ex-gymnast has to walk her through the process.
Jennifer's happy ending comes in her marriage. Her career isn't satisfying because she can never view any promotion or accomplishment as enough, even for a little while. Her marriage, however, is a happy one and her children have never taken a gymnastics class. She says they're too tall to be gymnasts with almost palpable relief. It was a brutal, difficult read that I'm sure will stay with me for a long time.
Jennifer Sey tells a very honest story about her gymnastics career. She holds nothing back when she speaks about former coaches. I have no doubt that she was truthful in her descriptions because there were long moments where I didn't like Jennifer herself. It never read like she was demonizing other people to make herself look better, just to say how it was and why it was. The only person I felt any consistent sympathy for in the book was Jennifer's brother, Chris, who was dragged along like luggage for most of her career.
As a child, Jennifer showed personality traits (cough*issues*cough) that laid most of the ground work for her gymnastics career. She was a perfectionist from a young age, ambitious, focused, intelligent, and extremely obsessive. All of this could have been channeled in healthier ways, but she set herself on the gymnastics route and no one ever stopped to consider all the better things she could've done with that personality mix. I do mean better. Gymnastics is a brutal path with a short career and it requires the sacrificing of almost every important rite of passage from childhood to young adulthood.
Her career started out innocently enough, with the equivalent of training at a local place mostly meant to go as far as state competitions and no further. The more promise Jennifer showed the more willing her parents became in investing in her career, including long commutes and moving multiple times. It's easy for the reader to see where her parents thought they were doing the right thing -- they were often horrified by the things other parent allowed their coaches to do to children, but it was their job to redirect her focus and make sure she lived a more balanced life.
For awhile her parents manage to keep it in a sort of gray area. Sure, Jennifer only got at best half a high school experience, but they found a gym that was more supportive than most. Yeah, she never went to high school dances or had friends outside the circuit, but for awhile she had a coach who didn't believe in daily weigh ins and thought the focus should be on the child as a whole and not just a short lived gymnastics career. They might have succeeded in giving Jennifer some sort of balanced life if the girl hadn't pushed herself and everyone else so hard -- and if they had ever managed to tell her no.
Determined to win, Jennifer deliberately entered hell where she was forced to weigh in twice a day, where the coaches yell and curse and occasionally hit girls, where the aches and pains of her battered body must be ignored so she can push, push, push. She becomes a Packette where she witnesses a coach throw a chair at a girl, another coach announce a child will end up just like her heavy mother for a two pound weight gain (announces it over the LOUDSPEAKER), and adult male coaches spend a little too much alone time in hotel rooms with underage girls.
Every bite Jennifer ate as a Packette was scrutinized by the people around her, other girls and the coach she temporarily boarded with. She was a little bit too big at 90 pounds and positively fat at 107 pounds. (She was five foot three inches tall.) Her body fought her to gain weight, to mature and grow, and she starved herself into a size that could fly through the air. No one said anything about long term health effects. Dieticians simply recommended the girls stop eating altogether at times.
It was a terrible story to read and there's no real happy ending with her career. Jennifer wins one big award and places amongst the seven girls to try for it again the next year, but by then her body is too bruised and battered to carry on. Her career ends not in a bang but a whimper as she lies on a floor mat realizing she'll never make the triumphant come back her mother wants her to make. She goes to college wit the air of heading to a retirement home and after a few months there finally gains enough weight to menstruate for the first time in her life. She's nineteen years old and has no idea how to use a tampon. Another ex-gymnast has to walk her through the process.
Jennifer's happy ending comes in her marriage. Her career isn't satisfying because she can never view any promotion or accomplishment as enough, even for a little while. Her marriage, however, is a happy one and her children have never taken a gymnastics class. She says they're too tall to be gymnasts with almost palpable relief. It was a brutal, difficult read that I'm sure will stay with me for a long time.
August 5, 2012
The title of this book is somewhat misleading. When it says "Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorder, and Elusive Olympic Dreams", one might assume that it was written to include multiple experiences, exposing the sport as a whole through different facets. In reality, this is a memoir, told by Jennifer Sey, of her personal journey through elite gymnastics in the mid to late eighties, and doesn't include other perspectives. So it really should be "Chalked Up: A Memoir of Elite Gymnastics" or something similar, because it's merely that, and not an exposure of the sport as a whole.
Anyway, on to the book itself.
This is a bitter read. Very bitter. While in interviews, Sey reads like someone who has been able to rationalize a lot of actions, and is merely sharing her story as a way to show the world what can happen when things don't go according to plan, her book reads like a little girl who is mad at the world for doing her wrong. There are moments when she concedes that a lot of the actions are her own doing, but everything else is the fault of her parents, her coaches, the media, the sport, the other athletes, and everything/everyone else in between. While there is a lot of pressure with the sport from outside sources, it doesn't go wrong unless the individuals themselves allow it, and although Jennifer does hint at that fact, it is not the major point in her book, because her voice is so bitter throughout the writing.
I think, in retrospect, that a lot of that bitterness comes from her own inability to reconcile her own inadequacies and the arduous journey with her unreached goals. There are plenty of other girls in the sport who went through everything she did, and possibly more, but in the end, felt that those ends justified the means. She never got to an end that she was satisfied with; she actually gave up shortly after her win at Nationals in 1986. So the methods she employed never justified the end product, leaving her very bitter in the process with her own apparent "failure". And when reading her book, it seems that that sense of failure didn't come from just her coaches, parents, or other people, as she presents it; while they may have contributed to it through some actions, it was ultimately her own overzealous personality that led to her own failure, and her own psyche that won't let it go. So the book itself comes off as very raw and rough, because Sey hasn't lost that edge to her anger, and seems unable to personally take that responsibility and let it all go.
Still, it was a good read. It's hard for the average person to know what it's like as a world-class athlete, with all the personal sacrifices and changes that go along with being the best, so the back-story is captivating. That time period in US gymnastics was somewhat ignored, because it was a time when the Europeans completely dominated originality and performance in the sport, and the US aspect was not a force to be reckoned with. Not to mention the Cold War and the athletes that lost out on their Olympic dreams with the boycotting of the Moscow Olympics, and the impact that had on athletes of the time, being uncertain as to the fruitation of their dreams in the wake of silly things like politics. Sey's story provides an interesting perspective on that time that isn't discussed much, and I found it interesting.
Overall, a good read, and I commend Jennifer for getting her story out there, even with the rough edges. I'm sure as the future unfolds, she'll find more peace with herself and her decisions.
Anyway, on to the book itself.
This is a bitter read. Very bitter. While in interviews, Sey reads like someone who has been able to rationalize a lot of actions, and is merely sharing her story as a way to show the world what can happen when things don't go according to plan, her book reads like a little girl who is mad at the world for doing her wrong. There are moments when she concedes that a lot of the actions are her own doing, but everything else is the fault of her parents, her coaches, the media, the sport, the other athletes, and everything/everyone else in between. While there is a lot of pressure with the sport from outside sources, it doesn't go wrong unless the individuals themselves allow it, and although Jennifer does hint at that fact, it is not the major point in her book, because her voice is so bitter throughout the writing.
I think, in retrospect, that a lot of that bitterness comes from her own inability to reconcile her own inadequacies and the arduous journey with her unreached goals. There are plenty of other girls in the sport who went through everything she did, and possibly more, but in the end, felt that those ends justified the means. She never got to an end that she was satisfied with; she actually gave up shortly after her win at Nationals in 1986. So the methods she employed never justified the end product, leaving her very bitter in the process with her own apparent "failure". And when reading her book, it seems that that sense of failure didn't come from just her coaches, parents, or other people, as she presents it; while they may have contributed to it through some actions, it was ultimately her own overzealous personality that led to her own failure, and her own psyche that won't let it go. So the book itself comes off as very raw and rough, because Sey hasn't lost that edge to her anger, and seems unable to personally take that responsibility and let it all go.
Still, it was a good read. It's hard for the average person to know what it's like as a world-class athlete, with all the personal sacrifices and changes that go along with being the best, so the back-story is captivating. That time period in US gymnastics was somewhat ignored, because it was a time when the Europeans completely dominated originality and performance in the sport, and the US aspect was not a force to be reckoned with. Not to mention the Cold War and the athletes that lost out on their Olympic dreams with the boycotting of the Moscow Olympics, and the impact that had on athletes of the time, being uncertain as to the fruitation of their dreams in the wake of silly things like politics. Sey's story provides an interesting perspective on that time that isn't discussed much, and I found it interesting.
Overall, a good read, and I commend Jennifer for getting her story out there, even with the rough edges. I'm sure as the future unfolds, she'll find more peace with herself and her decisions.
October 4, 2008
it was a good look inside the world of gymnastics, and showed both the good and the bad. it's heartbreaking to read about how worried jen was about getting older, knowing that the clock was ticking.
jennifer sey was the 1986 national champion.
the way weight and puberty become so ingrained in you - how you actually want to retard your growth because growing in any way changes the way you can move through the air.
it's a good look inside in the world of young gymnastics. the way it sucks up lives, destroys families, etc. and the coaches . . . i really hope that it isn't that way still. but of course you worry about it - the weight pressure, the smallness, and the repeated injuries, the pounding over and over again.
i kind of feel guilty for still enjoying the sport. i mean, it is a sport, and i don't feel bad watching football, but. these are little kids. weight of the world on eight year old shoulders.
i don't even want to know what it's like in china.
good, insightful, and i like the fact that it was actually someone in the world telling her story. it was also fascinating to see how competitiveness can spiral out of control, how you can get tunnel vision so easily, and how even when you're smart and responsible and "grown up" you fall prey to the same things as so many others.
jennifer sey was the 1986 national champion.
the way weight and puberty become so ingrained in you - how you actually want to retard your growth because growing in any way changes the way you can move through the air.
it's a good look inside in the world of young gymnastics. the way it sucks up lives, destroys families, etc. and the coaches . . . i really hope that it isn't that way still. but of course you worry about it - the weight pressure, the smallness, and the repeated injuries, the pounding over and over again.
i kind of feel guilty for still enjoying the sport. i mean, it is a sport, and i don't feel bad watching football, but. these are little kids. weight of the world on eight year old shoulders.
i don't even want to know what it's like in china.
good, insightful, and i like the fact that it was actually someone in the world telling her story. it was also fascinating to see how competitiveness can spiral out of control, how you can get tunnel vision so easily, and how even when you're smart and responsible and "grown up" you fall prey to the same things as so many others.
August 16, 2012
I'll start by saying I've read pretty much every gymnastics book out there...the good, the bad, and the ugly. I knew exactly what to expect when I picked up this book: The world of elite gymnastics is not all sunshine and roses. Sey was one of my favorite gymnasts in the years after Mary Lou. Not so much the case anymore now that I've read her book. I got the feeling very early on that her main reason for writing was to get back at ANYONE who had every wronged her during her gymnsatics career. She manages to blame everyone but herself for her inability to reach her ultimate goal of making an Olympic team. Sey admits to having a maniacal need for attention and praise at a very early age. Gymnastics is what earned her the attention she craved so she stuck with it. I'm not sure if she ever actually liked the sport for any other reason. Her constant drive for perfection and attention would have caused her to self-destruct whether she chose gymnastics, swimming, or ping pong. I found her story to be full of contradictions. She describes the excessive lengths she would go through to hide her destructive tendencies from her parents, then in the next paragraph blames them for not getting her out of the sport. One minute she acts like they could care less about her career and the next they (mainly her mother) were threatening to disown her if she quit the sport. She went to great lengths early on to describe how abusive the Strausses were to their gymnasts, but did not give her sweet grandmotherly coach (who was more interested in building confident, well-rounded young women than Olympic champions) a second thought when the opportunity to train with the Strausses arose. Sey makes allegations of emotional, physical, and even sexual abuse against many of the big name gymnastics coaches of the era without ever actually backing them up with hard facts, and she has no qualms about naming former teammates and describing them as trashy, fat, lazy... I'm surprised she wasn't sued after the book came out. I enjoyed the book because it was a behind the scenes look at elite gymnastics, but Sey comes across as a bitter and whiny has-been in my opinion.
June 26, 2008
The title makes it sound as if this is going to be one of those muckraking, voyeuristic looks at the sport in general (which are, you know, awesome), but it's actually essentially a memoir. The merciless coaches, overzealous parents, eating disorders, etcetera, are by and large her own. Unlike most sports memoirs, it appears to actually have been written in its entirety by Ms. Sey, which definitely has an upside as well as a downside. Just to get the down out of the way, she's obviously a gymnast/marketer and not, say, an awesome English major -- there's lots of cliched language, repetition of stock phrases, that kind of thing. But on the other hand, it comes across as pretty meaningful that the awkward, anguished, matter-of-fact voice is her voice, to the point where I started interpreting errors as part of the whole trauma (as in, "She's still too fucked up to even care about the difference between illusive and elusive, for God's sake!") I know, it's crazy! I was being nice about the mistakes! If there was, in fact, a ghostwriter involved (which would be, narratively, kind of bullshit since she wraps up the book by suggesting that writing it is the way she's finally found to escape from her old self), he/she needs to come up with a suitable excuse for all the errors. Child molestation might work. This is also one of the more powerful memoirs I've read, again oddly in part because of the lack of polish. Misplaced modifiers, icky diction, all that stuff ends up fitting in weirdly well into what's going on overall, which is that Sey is still really struggling with all this stuff. She hasn't arranged it, like most "I had a crap childhood" memoirists, into an easy narrative: here's the bad guy, here's the good guy, here's the savior. This still has all the inconsistencies and rough edges of most people's childhood memories. She is alternately angry at and sympathetic to her parents; she is alternately angry at and sympathetic to her younger self.
August 18, 2020
In Jennifer Sey’s memoir CHALKED UP, she chronicles the her slow rise and quick fall in the world of competitive gymnastics.
I’m a lifelong gymnastics fan from Olga Korbut in 1972 to today. A girl from my high school trained in Allentown at Parkettes, where Sey competed as an elite and where, in 1986, she became national champion, the pinnacle of her competitive success. The Strauss’s strict (abusive) training regime was an open secret in the days before the world knew of Larry Nassar’s abuse (not part of Sey’s story) and the inexcusable way young girls were treated under the Bela and Marta Karolyi. I barely remember Sey’s gymnastics.
CHALKED UP reads like a long rant against USA gymnastics, her family, most of her coaches, her teammates and her competitors. If I had to sum up the story in one sentence it would be a few hundred pages of “It wasn’t fair.” Many of Sey’s experiences weren’t fair. She also wasn’t fair to many people in her life.
I admire that she was willing to portray herself as so unlikable. She doesn’t flinch in relaying her unkindness and ill will towards her competitors. Jennifer’s brattiness came from parents who treated her as if she was the center of the universe, she ruled her family. What Jennifer wanted, she got at the expense of her parents and brother. This is not her fault as parents need to set the family structure and boundaries.
While Sey can spout details about her life, she doesn’t display much insight and doesn’t appear to have come to terms with her childhood. At times she seems spiteful, divulging secrets about teammates, casually mentioning her father’s affair (which seemed to have little impact on her). She ends the book focusing on her mother’s neediness. Sey could have used a few years of therapy before writing her memoir.
CHALKED UP is a below average story told with honesty but without insight.
I’m a lifelong gymnastics fan from Olga Korbut in 1972 to today. A girl from my high school trained in Allentown at Parkettes, where Sey competed as an elite and where, in 1986, she became national champion, the pinnacle of her competitive success. The Strauss’s strict (abusive) training regime was an open secret in the days before the world knew of Larry Nassar’s abuse (not part of Sey’s story) and the inexcusable way young girls were treated under the Bela and Marta Karolyi. I barely remember Sey’s gymnastics.
CHALKED UP reads like a long rant against USA gymnastics, her family, most of her coaches, her teammates and her competitors. If I had to sum up the story in one sentence it would be a few hundred pages of “It wasn’t fair.” Many of Sey’s experiences weren’t fair. She also wasn’t fair to many people in her life.
I admire that she was willing to portray herself as so unlikable. She doesn’t flinch in relaying her unkindness and ill will towards her competitors. Jennifer’s brattiness came from parents who treated her as if she was the center of the universe, she ruled her family. What Jennifer wanted, she got at the expense of her parents and brother. This is not her fault as parents need to set the family structure and boundaries.
While Sey can spout details about her life, she doesn’t display much insight and doesn’t appear to have come to terms with her childhood. At times she seems spiteful, divulging secrets about teammates, casually mentioning her father’s affair (which seemed to have little impact on her). She ends the book focusing on her mother’s neediness. Sey could have used a few years of therapy before writing her memoir.
CHALKED UP is a below average story told with honesty but without insight.
March 4, 2017
Jennifer Sey was the 1986 U.S. Women’s Gymnastics champion and the road that she took that eventually led her to this championship was filled with drama, heartbreak, injury and eventually triumph. Everything that she and her family went through to get to that pinnacle is chronicled in her memoir “Chalked Up.” It is an honest look at the life of elite gymnastics, a sport in which many participants retire from the sport before obtaining a high school diploma.
Sey covers a lot of topics in the book as the title implies. While this was a book that I found as a bargain book a few years ago, I was intrigued to finally read this when the actions of a gymnastics coach toward his gymnasts made recent news. The book read as I expected considering the nature of the topics and the fact that it was a memoir by an athlete that has long retired from her sport.
The Parkettes are an elite gymnastics team that trains in Allentown, Pennsylvania. That is a two hour commute from the Sey’s home in New Jersey, but between Sey’s obsession to be the best gymnast and her mother’s willingness to do anything to help her daughter obtain that dream, that didn’t stop them from getting Jennifer a spot on this team. It is there that her experiences with debilitating injuries, abusive coaches and eating disorders begin. She talks about the way coaches demean the gymnasts while the owner constantly reminds them of how “fat” they are.
How Sey continues to thrive in this environment is something she explains through the emotions she felt and her constant fear of failure. More than her competitive drive or her skills, I was taken aback by how freely she was able to write about her emotions, especially her fears. This passage from a practice session on the balance beam while a Parkette was one of the most powerful expressions of this fear: “ The fear never abates. It is constant, relieved only in the instant I have landed on my feet. It surges again and again and again. Agitation and fright is my perpetual state of existence. But I ignore it as I climb back up onto the beam and begin rocking.”
This book received much scrutiny when it was published, including pushback from some of Sey’s Parkettes teammates. While I read these reviews and comments, I felt the book was simply an honest assessment by her of her life as a gymnast, both the good and the bad. It wasn’t the best written or most powerful memoir I read, but it was a revealing look at the world of gymnastics that paints a different picture than that shown every four years during the Olympics telecasts, which is usually the only time many sports fans watch the sport. It is a book that is recommended for any reader who wants to learn more about the world these young girls live in in order to entertain the television viewers around the world.
http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...
Sey covers a lot of topics in the book as the title implies. While this was a book that I found as a bargain book a few years ago, I was intrigued to finally read this when the actions of a gymnastics coach toward his gymnasts made recent news. The book read as I expected considering the nature of the topics and the fact that it was a memoir by an athlete that has long retired from her sport.
The Parkettes are an elite gymnastics team that trains in Allentown, Pennsylvania. That is a two hour commute from the Sey’s home in New Jersey, but between Sey’s obsession to be the best gymnast and her mother’s willingness to do anything to help her daughter obtain that dream, that didn’t stop them from getting Jennifer a spot on this team. It is there that her experiences with debilitating injuries, abusive coaches and eating disorders begin. She talks about the way coaches demean the gymnasts while the owner constantly reminds them of how “fat” they are.
How Sey continues to thrive in this environment is something she explains through the emotions she felt and her constant fear of failure. More than her competitive drive or her skills, I was taken aback by how freely she was able to write about her emotions, especially her fears. This passage from a practice session on the balance beam while a Parkette was one of the most powerful expressions of this fear: “ The fear never abates. It is constant, relieved only in the instant I have landed on my feet. It surges again and again and again. Agitation and fright is my perpetual state of existence. But I ignore it as I climb back up onto the beam and begin rocking.”
This book received much scrutiny when it was published, including pushback from some of Sey’s Parkettes teammates. While I read these reviews and comments, I felt the book was simply an honest assessment by her of her life as a gymnast, both the good and the bad. It wasn’t the best written or most powerful memoir I read, but it was a revealing look at the world of gymnastics that paints a different picture than that shown every four years during the Olympics telecasts, which is usually the only time many sports fans watch the sport. It is a book that is recommended for any reader who wants to learn more about the world these young girls live in in order to entertain the television viewers around the world.
http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...
February 20, 2011
This is the story of Jennifer Sey, the 1986 U S National Gymnastic Champion. The book tells us of her mindset, what drove her to compete and what it took for her to reach that level of competition. It begins at the age of 3 when she learned her first cartwheel, and takes us through to the present. What she went through on a mental and physical level to reach a goal is both inspiring and upsetting, as is what's next for a person, still so young, who has spent their entire life in training for a small window of opportunity.
We're told of many things that you wouldn't normally hear about unless you were involved in, or knew someone in this field. From the mental and verbal abuse by some coaches to manipulate their athlete into the proper mindset. The politics which often don't reward the person with the best performance. Training and performing through injuries that would have most of us totally side-lined. The issues with weight, eating, sacrifice of the family, etc, etc.
I dare you to NOT think of this book when watching a women's gymnastic event after reading what the girls go through to reach this point.
The book was written in a way that was easy to read, and I thought gives us a good idea of what takes place beyond what we see on TV. And while we see what we may interpret as the horror of a young life, the author doesn't blame others for much of what she goes through. It's her own thoughts, fears and determination that bring her to where she is in life.
Read for Books and Chat
We're told of many things that you wouldn't normally hear about unless you were involved in, or knew someone in this field. From the mental and verbal abuse by some coaches to manipulate their athlete into the proper mindset. The politics which often don't reward the person with the best performance. Training and performing through injuries that would have most of us totally side-lined. The issues with weight, eating, sacrifice of the family, etc, etc.
I dare you to NOT think of this book when watching a women's gymnastic event after reading what the girls go through to reach this point.
The book was written in a way that was easy to read, and I thought gives us a good idea of what takes place beyond what we see on TV. And while we see what we may interpret as the horror of a young life, the author doesn't blame others for much of what she goes through. It's her own thoughts, fears and determination that bring her to where she is in life.
Read for Books and Chat
November 6, 2020
I'm fascinated by these kinds of memoirs. Though I never had an aspiration to be a gymnast, figure skater, or model myself, I'm appalled by the horrific treatment young girls and women in these occupations/sports have suffered.
Sey's account is different in that, while plenty of blame is dished out to others (her coaches, parents, the gymnastic associations, etc.), she takes on a lot of the responsibility for driving her own suffering. While I applauded her honesty, sometimes this made it difficult to like her. She was admittedly self-centred, obsessive, cruel and uncaring in her quest to become the US's number one gymnast. She was also incredibly self-destructive.
Being made to feel obese because you're over 100 pounds, even though you have 3% body fat. Performing on a broken leg that hasn't been allowed to properly heal, or on an ankle swollen to twice its size and deformed. Sey doesn't hide any of the uglier parts of her experience, but I would have loved to learn more about how she overcame and healed from them. I can't imagine what it does to a person to be brainwashed and made to feel inferior from such a young age. All in the name of being "the best."
Sey's account is different in that, while plenty of blame is dished out to others (her coaches, parents, the gymnastic associations, etc.), she takes on a lot of the responsibility for driving her own suffering. While I applauded her honesty, sometimes this made it difficult to like her. She was admittedly self-centred, obsessive, cruel and uncaring in her quest to become the US's number one gymnast. She was also incredibly self-destructive.
Being made to feel obese because you're over 100 pounds, even though you have 3% body fat. Performing on a broken leg that hasn't been allowed to properly heal, or on an ankle swollen to twice its size and deformed. Sey doesn't hide any of the uglier parts of her experience, but I would have loved to learn more about how she overcame and healed from them. I can't imagine what it does to a person to be brainwashed and made to feel inferior from such a young age. All in the name of being "the best."
November 20, 2014
I enjoyed Chalked Up very much, and I think that the whole narrative was told in an enjoyable and simple fashion. My only real complaint is Sey's very repetitive language - she will use the same phrase again and again and again, and never deviate from it even when common synonyms are available. However I don't hold this against her as, simply she is not a writer, she is a former gymnast, now mother, and I didn't particularly expect her to have a stand out style.
I'm very aware of the pressures and the 'dark side' of elite and professional gymnastics, and as such Chalked Up wasn't a shocking expose to me, however for what it was - one woman's journey through the world of gymnastics, it was highly enjoyable, unvindictive, and frank. I was very interested through-out the book to see how Sey's career left her physically and mentally when she retired, and she wrote of her post-gymnastic years honestly and delicately.
Chalked Up was a highly interesting read. Few books I would honestly describe as difficult to put down - this is one of them.
I'm very aware of the pressures and the 'dark side' of elite and professional gymnastics, and as such Chalked Up wasn't a shocking expose to me, however for what it was - one woman's journey through the world of gymnastics, it was highly enjoyable, unvindictive, and frank. I was very interested through-out the book to see how Sey's career left her physically and mentally when she retired, and she wrote of her post-gymnastic years honestly and delicately.
Chalked Up was a highly interesting read. Few books I would honestly describe as difficult to put down - this is one of them.
April 29, 2015
This was a very interesting book! Written by Jennifer Sey, the 1986 United States Gymnastics National Champion. She loved gymnastics and made it her whole life. Then her parents gave up their lives for her sport. Eventually she wants out, her parents won't let her, and she hates them. Along the way she breaks a lot of bones, develops bulimia nervosa, never menstruates and never has a boyfriend. Very interesting and gripping.
July 15, 2020
I had several preconceived notions about what this book was going to be about, and while some paid out others were a complete surprise and go against what Sey has been accused of in writing this memoir (accusations she addresses in her new introduction). She must adore her brother, because, in part, this is an apology to him and the constant disappointments she felt she caused in his life as they grew up. Mostly, after finishing, I feel this memoir is simply trying to ask how could the majority of these events been allowed to happen - how could it in any way be acceptable to treat children this way?
I was compelled to speak with my mom about my brother. We were a Canadian hockey family, and for those who know....well it's enough said. My parents attended almost every home and away game, my dad was a coach for a number of years, and my brother was good. He attended a training camp in Norway by himself and had been scouted by a minor league team that was a starting point for many professional NHL players. We had a running joke in our family that when he discovered sex he just quit. But my brother has told me he didn't want it as badly as my parents did for him. Anyways, I didn't want my mother to be defensive but I felt compelled to ask had her son ever been treated badly by coaches, adults screaming at him or been emotionally abused on his journey towards hockey stardom - even though I know the answer has to be yes to all of it! Just like Sey and the scrutiny given to female gymnastics, men's hockey is the top of the pyramid. Somewhere along the line, somehow, empathy, often sportsmanship, is drilled out of you, and a win at any costs is poured in. And it's accepted because it's sports and if you don't like it just leave. The child doesn't want to leave, so they accept and accept and accept and they don't tell their parents because that means the dream ends?
I think Sey was incredibly brave to write this.
I was compelled to speak with my mom about my brother. We were a Canadian hockey family, and for those who know....well it's enough said. My parents attended almost every home and away game, my dad was a coach for a number of years, and my brother was good. He attended a training camp in Norway by himself and had been scouted by a minor league team that was a starting point for many professional NHL players. We had a running joke in our family that when he discovered sex he just quit. But my brother has told me he didn't want it as badly as my parents did for him. Anyways, I didn't want my mother to be defensive but I felt compelled to ask had her son ever been treated badly by coaches, adults screaming at him or been emotionally abused on his journey towards hockey stardom - even though I know the answer has to be yes to all of it! Just like Sey and the scrutiny given to female gymnastics, men's hockey is the top of the pyramid. Somewhere along the line, somehow, empathy, often sportsmanship, is drilled out of you, and a win at any costs is poured in. And it's accepted because it's sports and if you don't like it just leave. The child doesn't want to leave, so they accept and accept and accept and they don't tell their parents because that means the dream ends?
I think Sey was incredibly brave to write this.
July 31, 2020
I started reading other people's reviews of this book and found that to be a bad idea as the first two I read were super dismissive of Sey's experiences and the extremely abusive culture within gymnastics overall. I remember reading Moceanu's memoir in middle school and being so alarmed when I first learned about the abuse that gymnastics is steeped in. But although my own experiences in rec gymnastics weren't that bad, I never felt any inkling of suspect at Moceanu's experiences, even as a middle schooler--which appears to be a skill several reviewers of Sey's memoir have not yet learned.
I HIGHLY recommend reading Chalked Up, whether or not you're a gymnast (tw eating disorders and emotional, verbal, and physical abuse. And it's obviously not a lighthearted book). I assume that most people today have at least some awareness of the abuse within USA gymnastics (though it extends internationally) given the high-profile case of Larry Nassar (side note: watch Athlete A!!! Tw for abuse and sexual assault). In Chalked Up, Sey reveals a different side of the abuse, but it is all deeply connected within the sport and USAG. She writes about being forced to practice and compete with severe injuries for the sake of her gym's prestige, the intense pressure to lose weight leading to an eating disorder, and learning to silence every message that her body sends her (this last point is more or less what I want to write my honors thesis on!). Throughout the years Sey had one genuinely wonderful coach and it was so heartening to be reminded that coaches can foster joy in gymnastics. Really, those are the only coaches that should be allowed to continue in gymnastics and in all sports. Happiness and health should ALWAYS be prioritized rather than an athlete's "success" as a product for the gym's profit.
I HIGHLY recommend reading Chalked Up, whether or not you're a gymnast (tw eating disorders and emotional, verbal, and physical abuse. And it's obviously not a lighthearted book). I assume that most people today have at least some awareness of the abuse within USA gymnastics (though it extends internationally) given the high-profile case of Larry Nassar (side note: watch Athlete A!!! Tw for abuse and sexual assault). In Chalked Up, Sey reveals a different side of the abuse, but it is all deeply connected within the sport and USAG. She writes about being forced to practice and compete with severe injuries for the sake of her gym's prestige, the intense pressure to lose weight leading to an eating disorder, and learning to silence every message that her body sends her (this last point is more or less what I want to write my honors thesis on!). Throughout the years Sey had one genuinely wonderful coach and it was so heartening to be reminded that coaches can foster joy in gymnastics. Really, those are the only coaches that should be allowed to continue in gymnastics and in all sports. Happiness and health should ALWAYS be prioritized rather than an athlete's "success" as a product for the gym's profit.
December 11, 2009
“You were a gymnast?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make it to the Olympics?”
“No.”
This is the conversation pattern that haunts Jennifer Sey, who was the 1986 US gymnastics champion, but by the time the next Olympics rolled around, she was too stricken, physically and mentally, to compete for a spot on the Olympic team. Her body’s desire to weigh more than 100 pounds – to grow up from a skinny child into an adult woman – and her brain’s unravelling ability to focus so completely on a single goal undid her career, leaving her with the sense that her life was over at the age of 19.
Chalked Up is a harrowing memoir, which chart’s Sey’s course from precocious 6-year-old, who adoringly watched the great 1970s Eastern-European gymnasts on television, into a bulimic, self-loathing teenager who recklessly prayed for injury as she competed at the same level as those girls ten years later.
It’s not an easy read – Sey’s depression and her limitless, clawing need for affirmation are palpable – but it is a compelling one. Most distressing is Sey’s still-fractured relationship with her family. In contrast to the usual ‘show mom’ stereotype, Sey’s parents were at first easygoing about her gymnastics – urging her to consider quitting after her first major injury. However, the way that Sey’s gymnastics obsession appears to infect her mother, to the point where she threatens to not attend Sey’s high school graduation if Sey, in turn, doesn’t attend an upcoming gymnastics meet, is particularly dark, eluding easy comprehension.
“Yes.”
“Did you make it to the Olympics?”
“No.”
This is the conversation pattern that haunts Jennifer Sey, who was the 1986 US gymnastics champion, but by the time the next Olympics rolled around, she was too stricken, physically and mentally, to compete for a spot on the Olympic team. Her body’s desire to weigh more than 100 pounds – to grow up from a skinny child into an adult woman – and her brain’s unravelling ability to focus so completely on a single goal undid her career, leaving her with the sense that her life was over at the age of 19.
Chalked Up is a harrowing memoir, which chart’s Sey’s course from precocious 6-year-old, who adoringly watched the great 1970s Eastern-European gymnasts on television, into a bulimic, self-loathing teenager who recklessly prayed for injury as she competed at the same level as those girls ten years later.
It’s not an easy read – Sey’s depression and her limitless, clawing need for affirmation are palpable – but it is a compelling one. Most distressing is Sey’s still-fractured relationship with her family. In contrast to the usual ‘show mom’ stereotype, Sey’s parents were at first easygoing about her gymnastics – urging her to consider quitting after her first major injury. However, the way that Sey’s gymnastics obsession appears to infect her mother, to the point where she threatens to not attend Sey’s high school graduation if Sey, in turn, doesn’t attend an upcoming gymnastics meet, is particularly dark, eluding easy comprehension.
July 10, 2016
I should start by saying that I not only love memoirs, I love gymnastics. I think if I'd been born shorter and more limber, I'd almost certainly have pursued the sport. Jennifer Sey's memoir, however, makes me grateful that I was not born shorter and more limber. Because knowing my younger self, and reading her story, this could have been me. Chalked Up could have been my story.
Sey's memoir is self-reflective at points, but mostly keeps you locked inside the mind of a driven, self-critical young woman who will stop at nothing to receive approval from those around her. Ultimately, that approval comes in the form of "winning," which becomes a self-destructive spiral as Sey fights her own fears, injuries, and impending puberty.
As an athlete, a driven individual, and someone who remembers crying at any loss as a child (from cards to swim meets), I completely related to Sey's mentality, even as she lost control while fighting to gain it. I definitely recommend this book--not necessarily to lovers of gymnastics, because you may find much of this story horrific and hard to understand--but to anyone else who thinks they might be able to relate to her approval-seeking nature and willingness to sacrifice every last shred of herself to "win."
Sey's memoir is self-reflective at points, but mostly keeps you locked inside the mind of a driven, self-critical young woman who will stop at nothing to receive approval from those around her. Ultimately, that approval comes in the form of "winning," which becomes a self-destructive spiral as Sey fights her own fears, injuries, and impending puberty.
As an athlete, a driven individual, and someone who remembers crying at any loss as a child (from cards to swim meets), I completely related to Sey's mentality, even as she lost control while fighting to gain it. I definitely recommend this book--not necessarily to lovers of gymnastics, because you may find much of this story horrific and hard to understand--but to anyone else who thinks they might be able to relate to her approval-seeking nature and willingness to sacrifice every last shred of herself to "win."
June 20, 2012
How I Came To Read This Book: My favourite Olympic sport has always been gymnastics. I was in the mood to get geared up for London 2012 so I searched around (briefly) for a book on the sport and came across this one, which was published back in 2008 to coincide with Beijing. I got it from the library a couple of days later...
The Plot: I had no idea who Jennifer Sey was, or how her gymnastics career went. In fact, I assumed this was more of a nonfiction high-level look at gymnastics from each of the bullet points in the title - a chapter on coaching, a chapter on parents, etc. In fact, Sey was the US national champion back in the mid-80's, and this book falls between a memoir (since 95% of it deals with her gymnastics career) and a biography (since it does span to 'present day' and includes stories about her life outside the gym). From humble beginnings learning cartwheels in Turkey, to showing surprising aptitude for the sport despite hurdles - imagined and real - that held her back from being the gym 'star', to excruciating accounts of starvation, physical pain, and psychological damage, it's basically a tell-all from one gymnast's perspective over the course of about twelve core years.
The Good & The Bad: I read this book in a bubble. Like I said, I didn't know Sey, I just felt like reading about gymnastics. After finishing it I let myself go online to watch her 'legendary' fall in Montreal and check out the website of one of the gyms she trained at. I noted in a few spots there was some controversy surrounding the book. I didn't really feel like digging too deep into it, but it seems some people are saying she either made up or exaggerated parts of the story. My general thought - defensively - would be that there may be some grey areas in the details, but there's truth in experience more than the finer points of that experience. There were definitely a lot of people - including her friend / bridesmaid / fellow competitor Doe - that got slammed in the book, but if any of that was petty or untrue, I kind of shrug my shoulders at it, because the darkest character in the book, the person who got the biggest send-up, was by far Sey.
Filled with self-loathing and destructive tendencies all for the unstoppable drive to be the best - only to discover the crushing reality of what that means once you get there - Sey got me into the head of a gymnast. Do I think it represented every gymnast's experience? No, but it was enlightening and disturbing to see the sport through her troubled, workhorse mentality. The injuries and bodily harm that were more often than not self-inflicted actually turned my stomach. I felt as tense as she did when she stood at the end of a vault runway or prepared to do a tumbling run on the beam. What was incredible was how despite the extremely dark mindset of Sey, you also got the sense it was very much par for the course - or perhaps, she was better at hiding it than most would be. Altogether though, I consider this book a success on the sole basis that her portrayal of her own personal challenges in the sport were riveting.
As for all the other drama - the semi-skewering of her coaches, her competitors, her gyms, her judges, her classmates - I didn't feel like it took away or particularly added to the core story. I would've been fine without speculation on Doe's relationship with her coach, or the he-said she-said 'overheard conversations' or rumours that pop up throughout the book. But I also didn't dwell on them either, or consider how true they were. Like I said, I think there was truth in the experiences Sey documented some twenty years after her career ended. But I'm on the outside - gymnasts in the field might feel totally different, or the people she writes about might find this thing to be a hack job. I just found it interesting, frightening, and at times, a little bit manically incomprehensible (in a good, thought-provoking way).
The Bottom Line: Offline drama aside, this is a riveting story that takes you to the deepest darkest corner of these little girls' minds.
Anything Memorable?: Sey's first international meet was in Winnipeg! Woo woo.
60-Book Challenge?: Book #28 in 2012
The Plot: I had no idea who Jennifer Sey was, or how her gymnastics career went. In fact, I assumed this was more of a nonfiction high-level look at gymnastics from each of the bullet points in the title - a chapter on coaching, a chapter on parents, etc. In fact, Sey was the US national champion back in the mid-80's, and this book falls between a memoir (since 95% of it deals with her gymnastics career) and a biography (since it does span to 'present day' and includes stories about her life outside the gym). From humble beginnings learning cartwheels in Turkey, to showing surprising aptitude for the sport despite hurdles - imagined and real - that held her back from being the gym 'star', to excruciating accounts of starvation, physical pain, and psychological damage, it's basically a tell-all from one gymnast's perspective over the course of about twelve core years.
The Good & The Bad: I read this book in a bubble. Like I said, I didn't know Sey, I just felt like reading about gymnastics. After finishing it I let myself go online to watch her 'legendary' fall in Montreal and check out the website of one of the gyms she trained at. I noted in a few spots there was some controversy surrounding the book. I didn't really feel like digging too deep into it, but it seems some people are saying she either made up or exaggerated parts of the story. My general thought - defensively - would be that there may be some grey areas in the details, but there's truth in experience more than the finer points of that experience. There were definitely a lot of people - including her friend / bridesmaid / fellow competitor Doe - that got slammed in the book, but if any of that was petty or untrue, I kind of shrug my shoulders at it, because the darkest character in the book, the person who got the biggest send-up, was by far Sey.
Filled with self-loathing and destructive tendencies all for the unstoppable drive to be the best - only to discover the crushing reality of what that means once you get there - Sey got me into the head of a gymnast. Do I think it represented every gymnast's experience? No, but it was enlightening and disturbing to see the sport through her troubled, workhorse mentality. The injuries and bodily harm that were more often than not self-inflicted actually turned my stomach. I felt as tense as she did when she stood at the end of a vault runway or prepared to do a tumbling run on the beam. What was incredible was how despite the extremely dark mindset of Sey, you also got the sense it was very much par for the course - or perhaps, she was better at hiding it than most would be. Altogether though, I consider this book a success on the sole basis that her portrayal of her own personal challenges in the sport were riveting.
As for all the other drama - the semi-skewering of her coaches, her competitors, her gyms, her judges, her classmates - I didn't feel like it took away or particularly added to the core story. I would've been fine without speculation on Doe's relationship with her coach, or the he-said she-said 'overheard conversations' or rumours that pop up throughout the book. But I also didn't dwell on them either, or consider how true they were. Like I said, I think there was truth in the experiences Sey documented some twenty years after her career ended. But I'm on the outside - gymnasts in the field might feel totally different, or the people she writes about might find this thing to be a hack job. I just found it interesting, frightening, and at times, a little bit manically incomprehensible (in a good, thought-provoking way).
The Bottom Line: Offline drama aside, this is a riveting story that takes you to the deepest darkest corner of these little girls' minds.
Anything Memorable?: Sey's first international meet was in Winnipeg! Woo woo.
60-Book Challenge?: Book #28 in 2012
August 27, 2012
This is the memoir of Jennifer Sey, a gymnast who competed at the elite level in the 80s. She shares her triumphs as well as frank depictions of things like emotionally manipulative coaches, rushed recoveries, and self-harm.
The writing style is fairly simple, which makes the parts about her harmful reaction to stress and her obsession with losing weight even more disturbing to read. Descriptions of the wear and tear that the endless practices caused to her young body kept making me put the book down for a bit.
Sey comes across as fair despite her issues with the sport, she's careful to make distinctions between things that she directly witnessed and those she only suspected or heard. (One coach that she mentioned rumors about has since been accused of taking advantage of several of the girls he worked with.)
She also emphasizes that pursuing gymnastics was her dream and her choice, and claims to have hidden a lot of the more negative repercussions from her parents. It's reassuring to learn that she wasn't pushed into that life, but I left this book feeling as if her parents bore a little more fault for her troubles than she assigned to them.
I've noticed some reviewers saying that she sounded whiny, ungrateful, or should have quit if she wasn't happy, like she should have taken more responsibility over her own situation. As adults looking back over her words and her career, it's easy to say. But preteens and teenagers don't always make the healthiest decisions under pressure. Young girls who push themselves to the edge for perfection should have a network of family and coaches looking out for them as people, not just performers, and I think a lot of us might seem whiny or bitter if we'd been in Jennifer Sey's shoes.
The writing style is fairly simple, which makes the parts about her harmful reaction to stress and her obsession with losing weight even more disturbing to read. Descriptions of the wear and tear that the endless practices caused to her young body kept making me put the book down for a bit.
Sey comes across as fair despite her issues with the sport, she's careful to make distinctions between things that she directly witnessed and those she only suspected or heard. (One coach that she mentioned rumors about has since been accused of taking advantage of several of the girls he worked with.)
She also emphasizes that pursuing gymnastics was her dream and her choice, and claims to have hidden a lot of the more negative repercussions from her parents. It's reassuring to learn that she wasn't pushed into that life, but I left this book feeling as if her parents bore a little more fault for her troubles than she assigned to them.
I've noticed some reviewers saying that she sounded whiny, ungrateful, or should have quit if she wasn't happy, like she should have taken more responsibility over her own situation. As adults looking back over her words and her career, it's easy to say. But preteens and teenagers don't always make the healthiest decisions under pressure. Young girls who push themselves to the edge for perfection should have a network of family and coaches looking out for them as people, not just performers, and I think a lot of us might seem whiny or bitter if we'd been in Jennifer Sey's shoes.
September 10, 2010
There are plenty of books written by elite gymnasts (or other elite athletes) who talk about how their training was difficult, but it was ultimately all worthwhile. Jennifer Sey, former U.S. National Gymnastics Champion, has come to the conclusion that it was NOT all worthwhile. Her memoir details her injuries which never had time to heal before coaches were pushing her to compete again, self-abuse with laxatives and anorexia, and a splintered family that gave up all semblance of normal life in order to pursue Jennifer's Olympic dream. And despite giving up her whole childhood to chase the Olympics, she was one of thousands of girls who didn't make it. Twenty years later, her crumbling body reminds her of all she gave up and didn't achieve.
This is a memoir which detours into muckraking. Sey puts most of the blame for her lost childhood on her parents, who should have protected her from sadistic coaches and questionable medical professionals. She also blames coaches who use their influence to chase medals, rather than nurture young girls.
When I was a kid, I begged my parents to let me take gymnastics. Begged! All to no avail. After reading this book, I'm kind of glad! I certainly never would have gotten to Jennifer's level, but even so, she didn't make gymnastics sound very fun.
This is a memoir which detours into muckraking. Sey puts most of the blame for her lost childhood on her parents, who should have protected her from sadistic coaches and questionable medical professionals. She also blames coaches who use their influence to chase medals, rather than nurture young girls.
When I was a kid, I begged my parents to let me take gymnastics. Begged! All to no avail. After reading this book, I'm kind of glad! I certainly never would have gotten to Jennifer's level, but even so, she didn't make gymnastics sound very fun.
July 27, 2009
Gymnastics is always my favourite sport during the Olypics, so I loved getting all the goss on how they get there. Pretty snappy read, tells the story of her gymnastics career.
I guess the pushy stage mother and chronic eating disorder are pretty standard, but this book goes beyond that to give the readers a sense of just how her family completely revolved around her focus on gymnastics until it split up her parents. Also evokes the extremely punishing physical demands and makes you realise just how young the girls are - broken ribs, bruises, constant hunger, being weighed every day and also the constant fear of falling and injuring. I never realised, watching them on TV, how terrified they are of falling and hurting themselves - as well as dreading their coaches reaction to any mistake.
I kind of wish this book spent more time what she thinks now reflecting on her career - she seems very torn on why she put herself through it all, very ambivalent.
Overally an entertaining, quick read and actually pretty amazing to see how far she got just on hard work and a stubborn personality. Have to say this book really stuck with me after reading.
I guess the pushy stage mother and chronic eating disorder are pretty standard, but this book goes beyond that to give the readers a sense of just how her family completely revolved around her focus on gymnastics until it split up her parents. Also evokes the extremely punishing physical demands and makes you realise just how young the girls are - broken ribs, bruises, constant hunger, being weighed every day and also the constant fear of falling and injuring. I never realised, watching them on TV, how terrified they are of falling and hurting themselves - as well as dreading their coaches reaction to any mistake.
I kind of wish this book spent more time what she thinks now reflecting on her career - she seems very torn on why she put herself through it all, very ambivalent.
Overally an entertaining, quick read and actually pretty amazing to see how far she got just on hard work and a stubborn personality. Have to say this book really stuck with me after reading.
November 9, 2010
The two stars don't indicate a bad book, just that I didn't enjoy reading it. It's a chronicle of Sey's path to success in competitive gymnastics, and how quickly she fell out of that world once she decided to quit. Most of the time, it's not a fun world to be in. Sey brings up the complicated question of who's responsible for seeing child athletes (or a child who excels and competes in anything else) through their decisions. A national champion gymnast with a shot at the Olympics has opportunities that few other people do. But to get there requires insane amounts of hard and dangerous work, with negative physical and mental consequences that can last for a lifetime. The sacrifice and work don't just come from the gymnast - Sey's whole family rearranged their lives around her gymnastics. So what happens when she wants to quit? Is it reasonable for a parent to say, "we've worked too hard and come too far for you to back out now"? Can anyone really make those decisions responsibly when children are competing?
December 23, 2011
This started out a promising book - a behind the scenes look at elite gymnastics. What it turned into was some of that and then the author saying repeatedly, my family sacrificed everything for me and that was perfectly normal followed by my family wouldnt let me quit when I wanted to so I cut them out of my life. She just came across as petulant. She kept talking about how much stress she was under, how driven she was to succeed without her parents pushing her and how she abused her body to make it to the top. But then she never seeemed to take real responsibility for her destruction other than to say I wanted to hurt myself on purpose to get out of it but when I did that I only performed better and better! Her refusal to eat became less about her need to control and more about her mother not paying attention to her signals and not saving her and then competing with her. I suppose I wanted to hear her feel accountable for her life and her drive. I suppose I hoped as an adult she would be more aware and that became disappointing for me as the book wore on.
June 30, 2010
I picked this up on a whim from the library. Probably not the best choice, considering that my younger son just got invited to join the competitive team at his gym, but I like to torture myself sometimes.
I learned that women's gymnastics should really be called girls' gymnastics. And this girl was particularly driven from a very young age, and was aided and abetted by all of the adults who surrounded her. She blames them a bit for this. It reads like a "why didn't you protect me from myself" story.
All I can say is that it's hard to be a parent, and impossible to be a perfect one.
It's a story that makes you look a little more closely at your children, wondering "are you REALLY happy? Is this what you REALLY want?" Apparently she did want it, and I can't begin to imagine what her parents would have had to deal with in terms of her behavior had they denied her the chances she pursued.
I learned that women's gymnastics should really be called girls' gymnastics. And this girl was particularly driven from a very young age, and was aided and abetted by all of the adults who surrounded her. She blames them a bit for this. It reads like a "why didn't you protect me from myself" story.
All I can say is that it's hard to be a parent, and impossible to be a perfect one.
It's a story that makes you look a little more closely at your children, wondering "are you REALLY happy? Is this what you REALLY want?" Apparently she did want it, and I can't begin to imagine what her parents would have had to deal with in terms of her behavior had they denied her the chances she pursued.
August 10, 2008
This was a good time to read this story with the Olympics starting. It is a look behind the scenes from a perspective on a national champion who struggled with the stress, pressure and demands of the sport of gymnastics. It is an eye-opening look at what lies behind the glamor and the pomp. Teen girls who like Patricia McCormick's Cut will like this one.
September 7, 2016
Jennifer Sey details her story as a "failed elite gymnast." It's an interesting terms, since she was the 1986 National champion." Sey has outstanding writing skills and tells us what it's really like to compete in a "little girls" sport.
April 18, 2018
The book is not well-written, but the subject matter was very interesting and illuminates much of what is bad in this sport.
Jennifer Sey had issues from an early age and moving into the sport of gymnastics only exacerbated her own self-loathing, sense of inferiority and drive for praise. She became the U.S. women's national champion in 1986.The abusive coaching techniques seem rampant amongst the highest rated gyms and am afraid are still the norm, sad to say. I was most horrified by the absolute disregard for the health and well-being of the gymnasts; encouraging them to practice & compete with serious injuries, finding physicians who were in collusion with the coaches to cut corners in their treatment and time to recovery. It made me think about what we all say was the courageous vaulting of Kerri Strug at the 1996 Olympics, having her compete with her injury. In retrospect and with insight from this book, was it because she was too afraid of her coach to say "no" I can't do it. Was she convinced by medical staff that it was OK to continue. Did staff prey on her sense of obligation to the team, etc etc.
As in many elite sports the sacrifices of the family for the athlete takes a financial & emotional toll. Jennifer's story is one more that falls in that category.
I LOVE women's (girls) gymnastics but this and other books, plus what has come out in the Larry Nassar molestation case really casts a terrible shadow on the sport. At what cost do we project onto the athletes that winning is everything?
Jennifer Sey had issues from an early age and moving into the sport of gymnastics only exacerbated her own self-loathing, sense of inferiority and drive for praise. She became the U.S. women's national champion in 1986.The abusive coaching techniques seem rampant amongst the highest rated gyms and am afraid are still the norm, sad to say. I was most horrified by the absolute disregard for the health and well-being of the gymnasts; encouraging them to practice & compete with serious injuries, finding physicians who were in collusion with the coaches to cut corners in their treatment and time to recovery. It made me think about what we all say was the courageous vaulting of Kerri Strug at the 1996 Olympics, having her compete with her injury. In retrospect and with insight from this book, was it because she was too afraid of her coach to say "no" I can't do it. Was she convinced by medical staff that it was OK to continue. Did staff prey on her sense of obligation to the team, etc etc.
As in many elite sports the sacrifices of the family for the athlete takes a financial & emotional toll. Jennifer's story is one more that falls in that category.
I LOVE women's (girls) gymnastics but this and other books, plus what has come out in the Larry Nassar molestation case really casts a terrible shadow on the sport. At what cost do we project onto the athletes that winning is everything?
March 5, 2022
As Sports Autobiographies go, this was better than average. It most likely hit a little differently when it first came out than it does in the post Nassar age. The gymnastics portions were fine and interesting. It was right of her to call out coaches and others who were emotionally abusive. However, it did feel a bit self-indulgent in the blame game. I had hoped for a transition at some point to internal controls and factors as well. Yes, a lot of bad stuff needed to be said about the coaches, parents, gymnastics in general, the Dr. and I'm sure that was all therapeutic for the author to write and yell to the world. Sort of like her gotchya moment. I wished she had at some point focused on her though and what she could control. I felt like she has a lot of unresolved issues that really need attention and therapy. It is not up to me to diagnose, but as the reader I just was bombarded with this sense of sulking that became too heavy. Sure, necessary...but page after page after page of blame and sulking and blame and blame and blame.
March 19, 2021
Jennifer Sey, the 1986 U.S. All-Around National Gymnastics Champion, writes about her career as a gymnast: the rise to champion, the perils of the sport, the oppressive coaching she endured, the sacrifices her family made for her, and the aftermath of having success early on and the expectations that followed.
I picked this one up after watching Athlete A on Netflix. It provided more insight into the culture that allowed the atrocities of Larry Nassar. Because Sey wrote this so many years after her experience, the reflection was more insightful than had she written it right after her experiences. She was able to look back at her experiences with a wisdom that might not have been there in the late 80s.
I picked this one up after watching Athlete A on Netflix. It provided more insight into the culture that allowed the atrocities of Larry Nassar. Because Sey wrote this so many years after her experience, the reflection was more insightful than had she written it right after her experiences. She was able to look back at her experiences with a wisdom that might not have been there in the late 80s.
September 4, 2024
This was a shocking deep insight into the world of gymnastics in the 80s. It's crazy how each poor decision, both from athlete and coaches, seems almost validated at the time to produce prime, thin, perfect athletes.
It's one of the few biographies that doesn't exactly give the happy ending you'd expect. This truly shows how the trauma of her early years in elite gymnastics had lasting effects well into late adulthood. I'm so glad so much has come to light in recent years regarding the toxic environment and positive changes are being made in the sport.
It's one of the few biographies that doesn't exactly give the happy ending you'd expect. This truly shows how the trauma of her early years in elite gymnastics had lasting effects well into late adulthood. I'm so glad so much has come to light in recent years regarding the toxic environment and positive changes are being made in the sport.
March 7, 2018
Well written and went by fast. Sey barely touched on any of the larger issues that are the focus of most gymnastics writings and focused purely on her own journey, giving the book a steamlined purity that served it well. Sey also gave a terrify look behind the curtain of the mindset it takes to be an elite athlete - and if that kind of perpetual self-loathing is necessary, I suddenly feel so much better about myself for never needing that level of validation.
August 21, 2025
I had a rough idea of what the content of this book might be like, given its' title description and the fact that I have read several other books about the intense, brutal, and often abusive world of training for elite gymnastics.
Of course, each person's experience was different, and Sey's is no exception.
Sey is a perfectionist, insanely driven and focused from a very young age. From crying over not being able to do algebra around second grade to being determined to dominate her gym in her early gymnastics days,it's clear that she has a typical "type A" personality, with a deep and wide competitive streak that will both assist her and become her downfall.
While I read this, I was trying to figure out why Jen was like this. Parental pressure and expectations? A pressure-cooker environment in her family where she was expected to do nothing but the best, as her father, for example, was a successful pediatrician, and her mother determined to continue to get bigger and better homes? Or, was Sey just like that given her personality, and her parents , feeling they had to support her and that this could be positive assets, felt they couldn't do much else? Did the parents get so caught up in the limelight and Olympic dreams, that they often forgot about Sey's well-being?
Only Sey knows for sure, of course, but I think the answer is likely all of those; it was a perfect storm, a chicken and the egg situation.
From the very start, Sey is obsessed with being the very best at everything. She never denies that. She is determined to come ahead of the girls in her gym that she views as more talented, and later, determined to show her often abusive coaches that she can prove them wrong. From the beginning, Sey is constantly comparing herself with others , and often feeling she comes out short; some girls are smaller and lighter. Some are more gifted at certain events. For example, Sey makes friends with a girl named Angie at her second gym, but at the same time, feels as if Angie is the gym favourite, that she can never match up to her skill level, and is incredibly jealous and angry when Angie is chosen over her to go to a prestigious meet.
While these attitudes and actions are common in adolescence and, I imagine, elite competitive sports, no one sees this as a red flag. Other than from Lolo, her coach that stands out among the others for being kind, supportive, and loving, Jen is never taught about teamwork, about being your own personal best, about not constantly comparing yourself to others, as you will always come up short. This can take a lifetime to learn, but it's important to start laying the groundwork early when you see this coming out in kids.
Sey's parents, like so many, get blinded by the lure of Olympic gold, and as a result, fail to see how the sport might be making their daughter a better athlete, but it's really failing her in her personal development and overall health. Her father makes a comment about her having a big behind when she's a young girl, even though he knows she's constantly worrying about her "doughy" physique. Her mother starts working in the gym office, and giggles when a coach tells her daughter to stop eating a bagel with cream cheese, going along with him.
As it is in many of these cases, it seems, the blindness and subsequent treatment by her parents get worse the closer she gets to the Olympics. Aside from one brief moment with her father, after her catastrophic injury in Montreal on the bars, her parents insist she sticks with the sport (particularly her mother).
The Sey family makes a number of sacrifices for her training, as so many of these families do; they move to Allentown, PA. so that Sey can train with the prestigious Parkettes gym, giving up their spacious home, uprooting Sey's brother, Chris, from his school and gymnastics gym (he is a gymnast as well, but not as driven towards elitism.) and causing her father to have to stay in NJ during the week to run his pediatric practice. They spend thousands upon thousands for training. The family's life becomes centred on a tunnel vision that is focused on Sey being a future Olympian, and everything else comes second, third, or fourth to that.
Sey becomes addicted to laxatives to shed weight quickly, as her coaches insist she do, and goes on starvation diets. She competes with serious injuries. She ignores her depression and anxiety. She has virtually no friendships outside the gym. She leaves school early every day for training, but maintains a high average.
While the family is focused on Sey becoming a better gymnast and winning, which she ultimately does (at a US Championship), they seem oblivious to the fact that Sey is not developing well as a person. She is jealous and bitter, and judges other girls the way she hates to be judged , making (not out loud, I don't think, but in the book) rude or snide comments about their weight and/or their appearance. Like it does with so many that are bullied, Sey is turning into a bully herself instead of siding with those that are in the same boat that she is.
Everything starts to unravel for her after she wins the US Championships. The victory seems hollow, disappointing for all of her hard work becoming just a moment of glory. Sey becomes deeply depressed and burned out, planning to injure herself and/or gain weight so that she is forced to quit. Sey is accepted to Stanford, a huge accomplishment in itself (although, it seems brushed off in the book as something hardly noteworthy. Perhaps Sey and her family would settle for nothing less than Stanford, so it was always assumed she'd go; that seems likely, given the other info in the book.)
At this point, Sey's mother crosses the line from stage mother to Mommy Dearest . When Sey approaches her about wanting to quit., her mother goes quite literally insane, screaming and yelling, calling her a failure, telling her ( at 18 yrs old) she isn't allowed to quit after all they gave up for her. Sey's mother sees the laxatives she has been hiding, but says nothing about them.When Sey threatens to gain weight to be thrown out of the gym, her mother screams at her that she will just have to lock the cupboards and starve her. Sey attacks her physically,wanting to hurt her, but stops herself before she can.
Sey's mother was showing signs of instability before this; locking herself in her room and crying when worried about Sey's performances, diarrhea when Sey was competing, not being able to watch her compete due to nerves, etc etc. Sey wanting to quit at this point seems to push her completely over the edge. I can see where a parent would be angry and bewildered when their child, whom they made all those sacrifices for, ants to quit before they can even try out for the Olympics, but rather than sit down with Sey and figure it out, or wait to cool down, she becomes abusive. Sey's father is in the background without much of a reaction.
Sey finds herself growing clumsy, afraid to do moves in the gym that she had nailed as a child. Despite her trying to beat back puberty with laxatives and starvation, her body is starting to change. It made me wince to hear Sey and her coaches call her "fat" for being about 107 lbs, but that seems to be a common occurrence.
Sey makes a deal with her mother that she will stay in gymnastics for now if she can go back to Lolo's gym. Sey feels she needs Lolo's nurturing to heal. Her mother agrees, and Lolo is kind and gentle with Sey. It's clear, though, that Sey's days as a competitive gymnast are done.
The rest of the book seems scattered and hurriedly written. We learn that Sey goes to Stanford, and she speaks of how she becomes sooo fat (she gains maybe 40 lbs, a lot at once, sure, but being 5'4 and 140 lbs is far from obese.). She finally enters puberty around age 20. She meets a man and gets married, having kids, still struggling with her body image, her relationships with her parents, her self-esteem. Sey's competitive and perfectionist nature hasn't gone anywhere; she talks about how it's important she has an impressive career as an executive and won't give that up for kids, how she still struggles with any criticism at work and being passed over for promotions or praise.
I don't know if she has since, or did then (she doesn't mention it), but Sey needed/needs serious therapy. She is still caught in the same destructive patterns and attitudes, the outlet is just different.
I forgot to mention something else that bothered me in the book; Sey's unchecked privilege and class bias. Sey makes no secret of the fact that she is from a wealthy home, with educated parents. That, of course, is not a bad thing. What is problematic and made me wince was how she judged others that were not from the same background..the girls at her Catholic school were not going to college, they'd drop out and get a job or get pregnant. The girls her brother dates are described as low-class, cigarette smoking, provocatively dressed, in a very negative way. Sey describes the public school her brother goes to as if it were in a war zone. I understand that it may have been rough, but she seems to equate that with being "blue collar", and consistently judges Allentown in that light. Sey seems to imply that anyone that doesn't go to college, that doesn't have money, that is scantily clad, etc. are somehow lesser than or beneath her. That may not have been her intention, but that's the theme I thought I picked up on.
To sum it up, Sey may have found great success as an elite gymnast , but she also never really developed as a person; she remains competitive, judgmental (I thought her comments about Kristie Phillips' downfall and attempted comeback to be very cruel), self-conscious, obsessed with appearances and weight. Perhaps things have changed, but while Sey says she forgives her parents (Admitting that their relationship was strained for years), she pours out such vitriol and sometimes, downright nastiness, in this book that it's hard to believe she's healed and moved past this traumatic point in her life.
I couldn't help but wonder what Sey had been like had she had parents that made her pull in the reigns, that taught her it was ok to not always be the best or to have perfect grades, to put her attitude and judgment towards others in check. If she had not had abusive coaches who called her names and made her starve herself. If kindness and mercy towards herself and others had been stressed instead of winning at all costs.
I sympathize with Sey for all she went through, but at the same time, she projects a "mean girl" veneer in this book that is hard to get past. If only more kids were encouraged to be kind and emotionally well-adjusted over being the "best" at everything.
I sincerely wish Sey well, and hope she has gotten professional therapy and found healing since this book was written.
Of course, each person's experience was different, and Sey's is no exception.
Sey is a perfectionist, insanely driven and focused from a very young age. From crying over not being able to do algebra around second grade to being determined to dominate her gym in her early gymnastics days,it's clear that she has a typical "type A" personality, with a deep and wide competitive streak that will both assist her and become her downfall.
While I read this, I was trying to figure out why Jen was like this. Parental pressure and expectations? A pressure-cooker environment in her family where she was expected to do nothing but the best, as her father, for example, was a successful pediatrician, and her mother determined to continue to get bigger and better homes? Or, was Sey just like that given her personality, and her parents , feeling they had to support her and that this could be positive assets, felt they couldn't do much else? Did the parents get so caught up in the limelight and Olympic dreams, that they often forgot about Sey's well-being?
Only Sey knows for sure, of course, but I think the answer is likely all of those; it was a perfect storm, a chicken and the egg situation.
From the very start, Sey is obsessed with being the very best at everything. She never denies that. She is determined to come ahead of the girls in her gym that she views as more talented, and later, determined to show her often abusive coaches that she can prove them wrong. From the beginning, Sey is constantly comparing herself with others , and often feeling she comes out short; some girls are smaller and lighter. Some are more gifted at certain events. For example, Sey makes friends with a girl named Angie at her second gym, but at the same time, feels as if Angie is the gym favourite, that she can never match up to her skill level, and is incredibly jealous and angry when Angie is chosen over her to go to a prestigious meet.
While these attitudes and actions are common in adolescence and, I imagine, elite competitive sports, no one sees this as a red flag. Other than from Lolo, her coach that stands out among the others for being kind, supportive, and loving, Jen is never taught about teamwork, about being your own personal best, about not constantly comparing yourself to others, as you will always come up short. This can take a lifetime to learn, but it's important to start laying the groundwork early when you see this coming out in kids.
Sey's parents, like so many, get blinded by the lure of Olympic gold, and as a result, fail to see how the sport might be making their daughter a better athlete, but it's really failing her in her personal development and overall health. Her father makes a comment about her having a big behind when she's a young girl, even though he knows she's constantly worrying about her "doughy" physique. Her mother starts working in the gym office, and giggles when a coach tells her daughter to stop eating a bagel with cream cheese, going along with him.
As it is in many of these cases, it seems, the blindness and subsequent treatment by her parents get worse the closer she gets to the Olympics. Aside from one brief moment with her father, after her catastrophic injury in Montreal on the bars, her parents insist she sticks with the sport (particularly her mother).
The Sey family makes a number of sacrifices for her training, as so many of these families do; they move to Allentown, PA. so that Sey can train with the prestigious Parkettes gym, giving up their spacious home, uprooting Sey's brother, Chris, from his school and gymnastics gym (he is a gymnast as well, but not as driven towards elitism.) and causing her father to have to stay in NJ during the week to run his pediatric practice. They spend thousands upon thousands for training. The family's life becomes centred on a tunnel vision that is focused on Sey being a future Olympian, and everything else comes second, third, or fourth to that.
Sey becomes addicted to laxatives to shed weight quickly, as her coaches insist she do, and goes on starvation diets. She competes with serious injuries. She ignores her depression and anxiety. She has virtually no friendships outside the gym. She leaves school early every day for training, but maintains a high average.
While the family is focused on Sey becoming a better gymnast and winning, which she ultimately does (at a US Championship), they seem oblivious to the fact that Sey is not developing well as a person. She is jealous and bitter, and judges other girls the way she hates to be judged , making (not out loud, I don't think, but in the book) rude or snide comments about their weight and/or their appearance. Like it does with so many that are bullied, Sey is turning into a bully herself instead of siding with those that are in the same boat that she is.
Everything starts to unravel for her after she wins the US Championships. The victory seems hollow, disappointing for all of her hard work becoming just a moment of glory. Sey becomes deeply depressed and burned out, planning to injure herself and/or gain weight so that she is forced to quit. Sey is accepted to Stanford, a huge accomplishment in itself (although, it seems brushed off in the book as something hardly noteworthy. Perhaps Sey and her family would settle for nothing less than Stanford, so it was always assumed she'd go; that seems likely, given the other info in the book.)
At this point, Sey's mother crosses the line from stage mother to Mommy Dearest . When Sey approaches her about wanting to quit., her mother goes quite literally insane, screaming and yelling, calling her a failure, telling her ( at 18 yrs old) she isn't allowed to quit after all they gave up for her. Sey's mother sees the laxatives she has been hiding, but says nothing about them.When Sey threatens to gain weight to be thrown out of the gym, her mother screams at her that she will just have to lock the cupboards and starve her. Sey attacks her physically,wanting to hurt her, but stops herself before she can.
Sey's mother was showing signs of instability before this; locking herself in her room and crying when worried about Sey's performances, diarrhea when Sey was competing, not being able to watch her compete due to nerves, etc etc. Sey wanting to quit at this point seems to push her completely over the edge. I can see where a parent would be angry and bewildered when their child, whom they made all those sacrifices for, ants to quit before they can even try out for the Olympics, but rather than sit down with Sey and figure it out, or wait to cool down, she becomes abusive. Sey's father is in the background without much of a reaction.
Sey finds herself growing clumsy, afraid to do moves in the gym that she had nailed as a child. Despite her trying to beat back puberty with laxatives and starvation, her body is starting to change. It made me wince to hear Sey and her coaches call her "fat" for being about 107 lbs, but that seems to be a common occurrence.
Sey makes a deal with her mother that she will stay in gymnastics for now if she can go back to Lolo's gym. Sey feels she needs Lolo's nurturing to heal. Her mother agrees, and Lolo is kind and gentle with Sey. It's clear, though, that Sey's days as a competitive gymnast are done.
The rest of the book seems scattered and hurriedly written. We learn that Sey goes to Stanford, and she speaks of how she becomes sooo fat (she gains maybe 40 lbs, a lot at once, sure, but being 5'4 and 140 lbs is far from obese.). She finally enters puberty around age 20. She meets a man and gets married, having kids, still struggling with her body image, her relationships with her parents, her self-esteem. Sey's competitive and perfectionist nature hasn't gone anywhere; she talks about how it's important she has an impressive career as an executive and won't give that up for kids, how she still struggles with any criticism at work and being passed over for promotions or praise.
I don't know if she has since, or did then (she doesn't mention it), but Sey needed/needs serious therapy. She is still caught in the same destructive patterns and attitudes, the outlet is just different.
I forgot to mention something else that bothered me in the book; Sey's unchecked privilege and class bias. Sey makes no secret of the fact that she is from a wealthy home, with educated parents. That, of course, is not a bad thing. What is problematic and made me wince was how she judged others that were not from the same background..the girls at her Catholic school were not going to college, they'd drop out and get a job or get pregnant. The girls her brother dates are described as low-class, cigarette smoking, provocatively dressed, in a very negative way. Sey describes the public school her brother goes to as if it were in a war zone. I understand that it may have been rough, but she seems to equate that with being "blue collar", and consistently judges Allentown in that light. Sey seems to imply that anyone that doesn't go to college, that doesn't have money, that is scantily clad, etc. are somehow lesser than or beneath her. That may not have been her intention, but that's the theme I thought I picked up on.
To sum it up, Sey may have found great success as an elite gymnast , but she also never really developed as a person; she remains competitive, judgmental (I thought her comments about Kristie Phillips' downfall and attempted comeback to be very cruel), self-conscious, obsessed with appearances and weight. Perhaps things have changed, but while Sey says she forgives her parents (Admitting that their relationship was strained for years), she pours out such vitriol and sometimes, downright nastiness, in this book that it's hard to believe she's healed and moved past this traumatic point in her life.
I couldn't help but wonder what Sey had been like had she had parents that made her pull in the reigns, that taught her it was ok to not always be the best or to have perfect grades, to put her attitude and judgment towards others in check. If she had not had abusive coaches who called her names and made her starve herself. If kindness and mercy towards herself and others had been stressed instead of winning at all costs.
I sympathize with Sey for all she went through, but at the same time, she projects a "mean girl" veneer in this book that is hard to get past. If only more kids were encouraged to be kind and emotionally well-adjusted over being the "best" at everything.
I sincerely wish Sey well, and hope she has gotten professional therapy and found healing since this book was written.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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