Rating: 
Summary: Stunning story
Review: A story both enlightening and disturbing about the inside world of professional figure skating. Those traveling ice shows are not the sweetness and light they portray themselves to be. The author has a unique way of making you feel the emotions and see the images that go with her words. I couldn't put it down, even during the hard parts. Recommend it for anyone, but caution for children under 12.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ!!!!
Review: A well written and superbly crafted memoir, this book is a great read for anyone, especially any athlete and/or person who has an awareness of the prevelance and etiology of eating disorders. The balance between her athletic ambition and skating career with growing up in a home where her character was not universally accepted is a difficult one to sucessfully transcribe, but Bertine's wit and humor allow her to write in an engaging and easily read way. The insights about the world of non-olympic professional figure skating are enlightening, even for people who have little knowledge of the skating world. However, what really shines in this book is Bertine's dedication to sport, sucess, and introspection, and her willingness to share her experience with the world. Well done! When can we expect the next book?
Rating:
Summary: Not just for athletes (or women) anymore
Review: All the Sunday's yet to Come was a fantastic read. As a former elite amateur road cyclist, I've never been on ice or ice skates yet I can identify with everything Ms. Bertine goes through in her book. I've read lots of books by athletes and about athletes in the past but none of them even comes close. Kathryn Bertine is a witty and entertaining writer with an unsurpassed ability to convey literary humor. She gets very personal and its like you are standing there beside her throughout, laughing, crying and experiencing emotions you may have forgotten existed. If you've never read a memoir before, you should start with this one. And if you are a memoir junkie, you owe it to yourself to give it a read and share it with others.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful Story
Review: All The Sundays Yet To Come is a powerful story of athleticism and the sometimes mirky waters of professional sports. The author takes great care in portraying the turmoil that ensues when you pour your heart into a dream: a dream that becomes nothing more than a lie. By juxtaposing her adolescent athletic development with the perverse demands of a quasi-professional skating tour, Bertine allows the reader to feel each fiber of her soul as it is being torn in half. To what depths can an athlete fall? What do we find when we sift through the wreckage of a dream? Can anyone other than a true athlete drag themself from a career that has spiraled out of control? Each question keeps you turning pages until you discover you've reached an athletic ultimatum... Fight or Die! Anyone who has ever felt the thrill of competition or found themselves at odd hours of the day training for a goal, personal or otherwise, will appreciate this disturbing and ultimately triumphant "journey of a skater". Congratulations on an outstanding first book! What's next?!
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommend
Review: As a big fan of figure skating, I ordered this book and was not disappointed. It is well written, funny, candid, and thoroughly enjoyable. Bertine's story is insightful and interesting and certainly drew me in.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommend
Review: As a big fan of figure skating, I ordered this book and was not disappointed. It is well written, funny, candid, and thoroughly enjoyable. Bertine's story is insightful and interesting and certainly drew me in.
Rating: 
Summary: decapitate graceful
Review: Bertine's memoir focuses on her experiences skating in 3rd rate ice shows across Europe and South America. While she is constantly mocking- and rightfully so- the cartoonish ice shows, she becomes anorexic in an effort to win a solo skating role.
As a skating fan, I wish she would have written more about her earlier years skating and less about her eating disorder. Yet, the most annoying part of this book is Bertine's alter-ego, Captain Graceful, who she refers to in nearly every chapter. Bertine seems to think the whole idea of Captain Graceful is funny, but I found it to be just plain stupid. Overall, "All The Sundays Yet to Come" is a well-written book, however, the author is not a very appealing person, and this makes it difficult to enjoy reading her memoir.
Rating: 
Summary: Haiku Review
Review: Carve and slice away
The turkey of normalcy.
End of reveiw list.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Book
Review: I am not an avid reader of memoirs, nor am I particularly fond of figure skating, but I could not put this book down. It is an elegantly written and brutally honest account of what happens when a long sought after dream turns into a living nightmare. The author has a talent for bringing readers into her world, taking them on a journey each one will be able to relate to in one way or another. At times laugh out loud funny, at others extremely moving, Ms. Bertine both entertains and challenges the reader. Her vivid imagery, creative metaphors, and unique voice will leave the reader wanting more. An extraordinary and courageous first work.
Rating:
Summary: Balances on a thin edge
Review: I am not normally a fan of memoirs of difficult childhoods, wherein authors scan their lives to find external causes for the difficulties they've faced. And what the heck does a twentysomething have to fill a memoir anyway? Even with all that, I found this book to be well worth buying and reading. This book has very funny and very powerful writing in it, sometimes simultaneously. She is a good story-teller, and the book was very hard to put down. Most importantly, Bertine does a great job, in my opinion, of balancing on the thin line between thoughtful analysis of her life and the people in it and self-indulgent blaming. At several points throughout the book, just when I was sure the author was going to spiral into the self-indulgent, and that I was going to have to put the book down with a groan, Bertine turned on herself, pointedly describing her own shortcomings and their source within her own self, making me realize that this book was not written about her family, or her home town, or "the seamy underbelly of the figure skating world", but is, in fact, Bertine's story of how she got to know herself.
|
