Rating: 
Summary: Finally, an athlete who can write.
Review: I disagree with "Lexmarie." Kathryn Bertine's book was honest and forthright. Just because someone's family is from a wealthy town doesn't mean that the children are automatically "poor little rich girls." In fact, the author constantly refers to her distaste for the social attitudes of Bronxville. People can't help what they're born into, but it is pretty rare to find those who can look at their upbringing so objectively. I'm thinking that this reviewer simply didn't get the overall point of Bertine's book. At the book's heart, it is a story about setting goals, and what happens when life throws a wrench into your plans. Anyone (above a junior high reading level) who takes the time to read "All The Sundays Yet to Come" will not only applaud Bertine's work ethic, but will be completely refreshed by the author's style. The girl can write. As an athlete and an educated reader, I have often been severely disappointed by sports memoirs and autobiographies. There are simply not a lot of athlete-authors who can write well, at least within the spectrum of high-end literature. Finally, Bertine gives us hope that books on sports can occasionally be considered art. I will be anxiously looking forward to her next work.
Rating:
Summary: A Journey into Identity and Self Determination
Review: I found this book irresitable, and devoured it. It was so captivating, I did not have the will-power to stop reading. It accompanied me to coffee shops, the beach, and on occassion even to work, until I finished it. But I must admit what held my attention most was its universality beyond skating and its application to all women athletes.I recommend this book to all men and women who have tried to glimpse their inner self and struggled to find the fundamental core of their internal motivation. This book is not for the faint of heart, it causes the reader to think and examine everything from values to experiences, it explores desires that sometimes go astray or worse can be self-destructive. Most importantly I believe this book is a must read for any professional woman, and I'd recommend it to all those who have an interest in women's health - as well as their own. This book is extremely well written in a witty yet introspective style that is at times playful and entertaining but does not diminish the powerfulness of the literary style. Kathryn Bertine's writing is refreshing and honest - I look forward to the next one!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, Lovely Woman, Who Knows Who She is
Review: I have met Kathryn in the small Colorado mountain town of Nederland, where she is still a substitute teacher, and can be seen often roaming the halls. Last semester, I took a creative writing class, and Kathryn came and told us about this book. I picked it up at a local bookstore, and was fascinated. Not only is she a fluent writer, but is one of the sweetest people I know. A little message to those who bash this book: Kathryn is genuine, and very real. I didn't know she was rich when I met her, but she never lets that side of her out, which is why I think she deserves the publicity for this book. A definite read. I am a sophomore at the school she subs at, in case you wonder how in thw world I met this nice woman.
Rating:
Summary: The day I came
Review: I love my sister. And I love her book. Not because it is well written (it is) but because it has brought conflict, passion and change to my family, forces that will bring us together and make us a more loving group of wackos... and hopefully spawn a literary rebuttal from my Mom. (watch out sis) I am bipolar 1 and was diagnosed and medicated in my early 20's. At 35 I have been hospitalized once (after 9/11). For someone with such an advanced level of the disease (5 is the lowest, 1 the highest) it is remarkable that I have not been inside more institutions. It is also remarkable that I have been married, had a successful career, made it through a divorce and found another woman who can love me with all my faults. The reason I function today is because I was lucky enough to be raised in an affluent background that embraced psychotherapy during a time when modern medications could treat my disease. I am alive because I take those medications. But let me get to the point... I punched my sister in the backseat of the family Ford Fairmont and gave her a black eye. In anger I got up from the evening meal, pushed the table away from me and the table edge hit my sister in the stomach. I whacked her in the shin with a pool cue when she wouldn't leave me and my friends in peace to play pool in the basement. And once, when we were very young I chased her around the kitchen with a meat cleaver shouting war whoops at least that's how I remember it). I have done worse things to her and we only became friends in our 20's. But, of the 4 "sister abuse" episodes listed above none of them can be absolutely attributed to bipolar. This is a very important point for people trying to help those who may be bipolar. The "episodes" can be attributed to a jerk of an older brother who suffers from sibling rivalry, but bipolar is often difficult to diagnose and is most often properly recognized when the person is in their twenties. Of everything my sister said about me (which isn't a lot and was mostly accurate and kind) only one situation describes me in the throws of a hypo manic episode. The problem: it was a situation that my sister mistook as a positive experience. Of the three times I went to watch my sister skate one of those times was when I was having a serious and dangerous manic episode a few years before I was diagnosed and medicated. When hypo manic, a person doesn't sleep. They believe they can do anything, feel connected to everything and more often than not they feel like an emissary of god... they rarely initiate violence, but their behavior can trigger a violent response. This described me one day at 5:00am when my sister came downstairs to the kitchen to prepare for skating practice. I couldn't stop talking. I praised my sisters ability and told her I'd love to watch her skate. Once at the rink I cornered everyone I could in order to "talk up" Kathryn (folks moved away from me quickly). I took over the media box and started to call radio stations to get them to play Jethro Tull's "Skating Away." Every station hung up on me. I jumped in the car and drove with no regard for the law or safety to get to the nearest music store. It was closed. I considered breaking in but instead I drove all the way home and grabbed the tape. I rushed back to the rink and played the song, pretending I was a radio announcer. "Skating Away" became one of Kathryn's favorite songs and that event touched her as a wonderful gesture from her big brother. I was 19 and that was one of my first "true" manic episodes. The mania lasted for months and I'm lucky to be alive, not because I was violent but because my judgment was so seriously impaired. This is the gist of my belabored point: with a brain disorder, not everything is as it seems. A mental illness is often genetic, it can be triggered by trauma... it is always initially misunderstood. Read my sisters book because it is full of humor. Read it because it describes 3 brain disorders and how they affect the development of a young athlete. But read the book as an informed skeptic. One of Kathryn's favorite books is "Grendel" by John Gardner. It is a story about a misunderstood monster. Of the monsters in Kathryn's life 3 of them are still misunderstood. The next book will certainly describe how she befriends those monsters. -- Peter K. Bertine, Jr www.tt56.com
Rating:
Summary: Inspirational
Review: In her autobiographical first book, All the Sundays Yet to Come, Kathryn Bertine tells the story of how she, once a competitive figure skater performing at the highest levels in the sport, willingly went down the dark alley of anorexia in order to keep her dreams of athletic stardom alive. Bertine recounts the loneliness of her privileged childhood in upstate New York and how she found warmth, acceptance, and room for personal growth at the local ice rink, a semi-enclosed structure where she froze under layers of spandex while training her body and conditioning her mind. It was at the ice rink that she met and nurtured her marvelous alter-ego, Captain Graceful-a superhero for a female athlete, who embodied her goals of strength, poise, resilience, and panache. Bertine writes about the highs and lows of her life with humor and honesty. She skillfully interweaves her days as a teenage athlete with the harsh realities she found on the professional skating circuit in Europe and South America, showing without reserve how an unexamined dream can become a nightmare. Bertine's story recounts the trauma associated with life in an ice show--the degrading weekly weigh-ins that undermined her fragile self-esteem and led her into a life-threatening eating disorder, the bizarre costumes and frivolous routines that trivialized the years she spent training as a competitive skater, and the internal politics and dubious practices of the shows, which included confiscating and locking up skaters' passports and visas and giving preferential treatment to eastern European skaters because their work visas were cheaper than those of their American and Canadian counterparts. And then there are the other skaters. Bertine writes of those who were also chasing their own private dreams, like her best friend from England whose sparkling humor and loyalty anchored Bertine and gave her the courage to try to escape from the show when she was at her lowest point. She writes of those who were caught on the crazy merry-go-round of show business and didn't know how to get off, like the Canadian soloist who was afraid to leave to visit his dying mother because he didn't want the show to replace him. An inspirational look at one athlete's journey, All the Sundays Yet to Come is a wonderful book by a remarkable athlete and gifted writer.
Rating: 
Summary: Growing up in a Dream World
Review: Kathryn Bertine is an excellent writer. My mom bought me the book because I grew up in the same town and had swimming lessons with Kathryn's mom...this was in the early 1970's, before she was born. We have never met, and I hope to meet her someday. This saga was inspiring and has motivated me to finally get my life-story down on paper. She has given us a clear story of growing up in a world with mixed messages and stressful expectations. She was determined to reach for her goals and unfortunately it was bittersweet in the end.
Rating:
Summary: Growing up in a Dream World
Review: Kathryn Bertine is an excellent writer. My mom bought me the book because I grew up in the same town and had swimming lessons with Kathryn's mom...this was in the early 1970's, before she was born. We have never met, and I hope to meet her someday. This saga was inspiring and has motivated me to finally get my life-story down on paper. She has given us a clear story of growing up in a world with mixed messages and stressful expectations. She was determined to reach for her goals and unfortunately it was bittersweet in the end.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent story of growth and triumph
Review: Kathryn Bertine wanted all her life to be a figure skater, and to perform with the Ice Capades. Training from a young age, she advanced through the ranks of skating's amateur classifications, and perfected her art. When she finished high school, she tried out and was accepted to the Ice Capades, who urged her to get her college education, and then come back to them, which she did. Unfortunately, only days before she was to join the professional skating world, the Ice Capades went bankrupt, and Bertine was forced to pursue her dream elsewhere.
This is the story of Kathryn Bertine's life through the ups and downs of figure skating, and the sometimes tragic sacrifices she endured to pursue that dream - to the detriment of her own health. And it is the story of her eventual triumph, as she escaped the circus-like confines of "professional" skating and emerged as a strong, healthy, and ultimately successful athlete.
Well written and engaging, this autobiography is not something I would recommend to little girls who dream of becoming skaters. Certainly their parents should read it, so they can become aware of the potential downside of those dreams. I would also recommend this to anyone suffering from any sort of eating disorder, as Bertine depicts her struggle for healing and survival as she overcomes her own disorder.
Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Beneath the surface
Review: On the surface this book is a memoir of a figure skater who does not make it to the Olympics; who instead ends up in a second rate ice show touring South America in sequins and feathers and animal costumes. Her colorful accounts of the tour and her stories of how she got there (fish out of water growing up in a wealthy New England suburb, 4 am practice sessions, her controlling mother, her bipolar brother) are hilarious yet honest in a David Sedaris kind of way. Beneath the surface, however, is a very powerful and profound story. I really couldn't put this book down, primarily due to the author's voice: her passion, her courage, her honesty. Mostly I loved her skillful and subtle transition from zany stories about crazy characters and wild experiences to her painfully honest account of how obsessiveness and the need to be successful led her down a frightening path of self-destruction--and, fortunately, her journey back again. I really loved this book because it was witty and fun and it also made me think and feel. I could relate to a lot which kept me connected and it also had plenty of unique stories that I found interesting and entertaining. An important book for anyone who has ever felt different, was willing to sacrifice nearly everything in order to succeed, or has felt the need to escape their reality, and in running so far away ended up finding themselves.
Rating:
Summary: What happens to a dream deferred?
Review: The author was in two classes with me at Colgate and it was a great pleasure to know her. She was one of the most popular students at college because she is engaging, charismatic, outgoing and down to earth. Her cult of personality does not really come out in this book. The strongest part of this book is the coming of age element. Kathryn was probably always an outspoken, fiercely independent and idealistic individual. Her personal qualities clashed with the expectations of her reserved upper middle class family and the affluent village of Bronxville, NY that she was raised in. Growing up a quasi- outsider, she threw herself into her love for skating where she dreamed of becoming famous. On the ice, she could express herself and achieve the adulation that she longed for and that was missing from the cutthroat and caddy environment she came from. Fast forward through the college years and Kathryn lands a couple of gigs with second tier professional ice skating tours (Ice Capades went belly up). Her little girl dreams of being a glamorous and well loved professional ice skater are squashed by the humiliating aspects of the job. Anorexia and laxatives help the author pass the weekly weigh- in. Her Russian coworkers are violent nymphomaniacs and alcoholics, and the third- world Latin American countries she passes threw have cheesy entertainment tastes. She suffers the indignities of having to wear a chicken costume and porno getups. She is the "ugly doll" in one routine. She works for peanuts and the living conditions of the tour recall images of Sally Struthers relief ads. She is an anonymous circus clown caricature whirling around the rink of a backwater town in South America with 1% body fat. Kathryn goes to the end of the world and her sanity to chase down her dream. It is a surreal image for this sheltered child from an upscale background. In the end, she forges her own identity from the experiences she had on both sides of the tracks. She shuns other people's expectations, becomes comfortable in her own skin and gets on with her life. Kathryn is not unique for having a nasty sibling. I did not empathise with her when she described how cold her mother was growing up or how evil the seventh graders were in her middle school. It is really not that strange for parents to get divorced nowadays (her parents did not). I find it strange also that she abhorred Bronxville and then chose to go to college at an isolated speck of land oozing with J- Crew, web belts and high- end SUV's.
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