I really liked this book and found Moceanu's perspective about her trying and highly publicized life very interesting and a bit sad. Yes, I finished this book the day after the USA women's team won the Olympic team gold again - for the first time since Moceanu's team.

I was a gymnast from the age of 4 through high school. I was never a club or Elite gymnast by any means, but I could hold my own in my high school conference. Needless to say, I have been a fan of gymnastics for years and remember watching the 1996 Olympics.

This book is about Moceanu's life; not just the Olympics, not just the Karolyi's, and just her emancipation, and not just her recently found sister. This covers everything, and that is a lot to cover in one book. At times I wished for more details about events, especially the Olympics and the emancipation trial. However, during the Olympics, Moceanu was a young girl and she purposefully didn't watch her teammates' routines so as not to throw off her concentration, so she doesn't have many details to share about those specific meets. Also, I'm sure even thinking about the emancipation trial is still difficult for her, so I can't fault her for not writing much about it.

She jumped around in the book a bit, it did not flow chronologically which was confusing at times. The chapter titles tell you what it will be about, but there was still some timeline jumping throughout.

I was very interested to hear her take on the Karolyi's. I've heard mixed reviews about their practices over the years, especially after Kerri Strug's famous vault. For gymnasts to be competing at the level that we see them on TV, one has to expect them to work hard and their time in the gym will be tough. However, Moceanu's descriptions of how she was treated by the Karolyi's before the Olympics and even in years after the Olympics are deplorable. Yes, this is one girl's experience and possibly not everyone was treated like that at the time and isn't even now. Even so, this was her experience and how she internalized it and remembers it, and it breaks my heart. Then, in the past few years for her to be blackballed essentially and not allowed to compete even after doing all that was asked of her is just plain wrong. There is too much bureaucracy in gymnastics, and she's right, "Do we really want someone who financially benefits from hosting training camps telling us we need more of these camps throughout the year? Shouldn't an unbiased individual...be making those decisions?"

Overall, I thought it was a good book. It makes me look differently at the sport that I love to watch - especially during Olympic games. Watch Bela during interviews - he really is a sleazy suave guy, isn't he?