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409 reviews for:
What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen
Kate Fagan
4.2 AVERAGE
409 reviews for:
What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen
Kate Fagan
4.2 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt
Read this on the kindle. This story is close to home as I grew up in the same small town as Maddy and also attended college (and still reside) in Philly. I recognize the pressures from a town like Allendale, the toxic pressures placed on perfection and conformity of the youth there. Overall, this book was a good reminder on the expectations we should/shouldn't be placing on ourselves and our children... not the most compelling written work, but still a valuable reminder.
I took Saturday off, slept a lot, and read What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen.
Kate Fagan has written a must-read book for every parent of a high school or college athlete.
The story of Madison Holleran is a heartbreaking one. Maddy was a star athlete in high school, in a big (five kids) happy family with two engaged parents. She played soccer and track and, after almost going to Lehigh for soccer, ended up going to Penn for track.
And, that’s when everything started to go wrong.
Maddy committed suicide a few days after returning for the second semester of her freshman year after trying, unsuccessfully, to quit the track team.
Maddy’s family gave the author, Kate Fagan, incredible access, which allowed Fagan to write a powerful book. Many different themes are explored, against the backdrop of Maddy’s development as a teenage athlete, the internal pressures of today’s teen, the struggle of entry into college and separation from home, and how depression can take hold of someone. While Maddy’s story is central to all of this, Fagan includes her own experience as a college athlete in areas, that make the writing incredibly relatable.
It’s not an easy book since you know the ending when you start it. It’s simple to fall in love with Maddy – she’s a delightful American kid. The joy in her friendships and experiences start off rich and light. You see the turn into darkness happen slowly. And, because it unfolds against the backdrop of Fagan’s analysis and intellectual exploration, it makes it more accessible.
Kate Fagan has written a must-read book for every parent of a high school or college athlete.
The story of Madison Holleran is a heartbreaking one. Maddy was a star athlete in high school, in a big (five kids) happy family with two engaged parents. She played soccer and track and, after almost going to Lehigh for soccer, ended up going to Penn for track.
And, that’s when everything started to go wrong.
Maddy committed suicide a few days after returning for the second semester of her freshman year after trying, unsuccessfully, to quit the track team.
Maddy’s family gave the author, Kate Fagan, incredible access, which allowed Fagan to write a powerful book. Many different themes are explored, against the backdrop of Maddy’s development as a teenage athlete, the internal pressures of today’s teen, the struggle of entry into college and separation from home, and how depression can take hold of someone. While Maddy’s story is central to all of this, Fagan includes her own experience as a college athlete in areas, that make the writing incredibly relatable.
It’s not an easy book since you know the ending when you start it. It’s simple to fall in love with Maddy – she’s a delightful American kid. The joy in her friendships and experiences start off rich and light. You see the turn into darkness happen slowly. And, because it unfolds against the backdrop of Fagan’s analysis and intellectual exploration, it makes it more accessible.
I think this book provides some useful insight into the generation of students currently attending college. It is all too easy to cast them aside as spoiled "snowflakes" and not think about how they face a unique set of pressures created by social media and activity-filled and achievement-driven youths.
I think the author did a commendable job with a really tough subject, but the book did not quite "hang together" for me in every respect. I think where it frayed a bit was her trying to connect the general (i.e. what everyone of Maddy's friends was experiencing in their first year of college) with the particular (i.e. what Maddy was experiencing as she struggled with anxiety and depression).
I think the author did a commendable job with a really tough subject, but the book did not quite "hang together" for me in every respect. I think where it frayed a bit was her trying to connect the general (i.e. what everyone of Maddy's friends was experiencing in their first year of college) with the particular (i.e. what Maddy was experiencing as she struggled with anxiety and depression).
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide
Moderate: Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief
'What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen' by Kate Fagan left me feeling sad. Fagan certainly did her best to understand Maddy's suicide by examining Maddy's social media comments and by conducting interviews with family, friends, psychologists and other athletes, some of whom also felt suicidal after graduating from high school and transitioning to college.
The cover blurb is accurate, so I have copied it:
From noted ESPN commentator and journalist Kate Fagan, the heartbreaking and vital story of college athlete Madison Holleran, whose death by suicide rocked the University of Pennsylvania campus and whose life reveals with haunting detail and uncommon understanding the struggle of young people suffering from mental illness today
If you scrolled through the Instagram feed of 19-year-old Maddy Holleran, you would see a perfect life: a freshman at an Ivy League school, recruited for the track team, who was also beautiful, popular, and fiercely intelligent. This was a girl who succeeded at everything she tried, and who was only getting started.
But when Maddy began her long-awaited college career, her parents noticed something changed. Previously indefatigable Maddy became withdrawn, and her thoughts centered on how she could change her life. In spite of thousands of hours of practice and study, she contemplated transferring from the school that had once been her dream. When Maddy's dad, Jim, dropped her off for the first day of spring semester, she held him a second longer than usual. That would be the last time Jim would see his daughter.
WHAT MADE MADDY RUN began as a piece that Kate Fagan, a columnist for espnW, wrote about Maddy's life. What started as a profile of a successful young athlete whose life ended in suicide became so much larger when Fagan started to hear from other college athletes also struggling with mental illness. This is the story of Maddy Holleran's life, and her struggle with depression, which also reveals the mounting pressures young people, and college athletes in particular, face to be perfect, especially in an age of relentless connectivity and social media saturation.
Fagan examines the pressures student athletes feel from everyone as well as themselves in athletic performance.
-The increasing number of and neverending physical intensity of the workouts and the toll on the body.
-The social reinforcement and internalization and the mental shaping of personal thoughts about quitting and quitters replacing one's true feelings and ideas.
-Lack of personal authenticity and being unable to discuss that with anyone.
-Fagan didn't say, but I think being inexperienced with the unexpected road curves of life suddenly turning up and ruining all of your plans for your life.
The unexpected road curves I think Maddy apparently faced was the isolation of a big impersonal university and the realization she was fifth best, not first as she was in her smaller high-school world despite her best efforts. Fagan believes this, too, I think. I also think a secondary cause was her unwillingness or inability to accept her limitations and thus needing to lower the bar on her expectations. She must have put her entire fortune, so to speak, meaning her sense of self, on what she thought was a done deal - being without peer as an athlete. That rug was pulled out from under her feet. She also apparently suffered from an anxiety disorder, which seems to be a more common problem with today's young generation. At least, more psychologists are beginning to sound the alarm of anxiety disorders becoming common among young people. They suspect it is the texting, the Emojis standing in for actual emotion and personal contact, the increased level of social performance and appearance of perfection required on social media. Comments must be glammed up, pictures must be made beautiful, life events must be exaggerated into either a positive or humorous outcome, or the dull and ordinary must be made cute or interesting, to gather in 'likes'. Real-life feelings/desires and imperfections are hidden under a false social self for profit and advancement both socially and financially.
Maybe this falsification of the external self since a person was a child leads to being empty of a real self to rely on when things go bad. Say goodbye to the authenticity of self! Say hello to increased depression and suicidal thoughts.
Continuing with my own personal observations:
I believe often no room is made for personal life evolutions for celebrities, for example, whether they are big fish in a small pond or large pond, being continuously in the limelight. For instance, the kid video gamer who becomes a millionaire from his YouTube channel; but then finds himself tired of it but he needs to continue with it because of financial pressures and being unable to tolerate the loss of face and 'love' in disappointing his fans. The millionaire kid singer who wants to sing jazz when he grows up instead of pop songs and loses his audience and financial support.
Then the seemingly relentless unceasing judgement in schools or social media today of one's looks, mistakes, life choices because of the technology of cell phone cameras and the Internet. The Internet never forgets anything uploaded online. Mistakes are forever today. Failures are forever today. Evolving out of an interest or talent is unforgivable today. There is no such thing as moving on from being, for example, the best cook, the best programmer, the best gamer, in one's supposedly 'close admirers' circle of social media. If one does move on - omg, the rancor, the rage, the verbal abuse, of admirers!
Just saying.
I have never been a Goodreads star reviewer going by the number of 'likes' I've observed other reviewers gather in. Sometimes I feel pangs about that, especially considering I've been here since 2010 and that I have written hundreds of reviews. My reviews are apparently unpopular and rejected by most! It does give me some 'ouch!' effect on my day sometimes.
However, my goal in reading and writing reviews on Goodreads since I became a member changed from keeping a book diary to satisfying myself in seeing who the authentic me is. I discover who I am in writing. Feelings and ideas which feel inchoate and disturbingly chaotic within me mysteriously become something I can grasp and feel more clearly when I write, sort of observing the Schrodinger's cat trapped in the box within my head. The endorphins flow for me in seeing in print who I am, having sorted myself out by writing! That is a powerful inducement, discovering what my authentic self is by writing - even more than writing to please a crowd and earn 'likes'. But I do not have a career or any financial interest in reviewing. I did not grow up or live most of my life with a social media image I have to maintain for my contacts or any admirers.
The university coach required before- and after-classes workouts every day. In Maddie's high school, she was expected to only work out three days a week after school. The pressure to perform was less shrill in high school, and of course, she was a part of a team of friends with whom she often partied and relaxed, people with whom she could more or less be herself. However, it is clear she was a driven personality, even in high school. She had a relentless drive to be the best.
She played soccer in high school where she excelled. She loved soccer. When she went to University, she went as a track athlete - running, because that is how she could get into an Ivy League University. Choosing to play soccer instead of track meant getting a scholarship to an ordinary college.
But what if she had been number one in the sport of track at college? I thought about this after finishing the book.
I couldn't help noticing there was no discussion of what might come for most athletes after college. Do people expect all college athletes to become coaches or what, after college? There are only so many coaching jobs. Is coaching, maybe being an ordinary coach as well, fulfilling after a being a star athlete, or less than? What other kind of paying job is there for those who can sprint and/or run for a long distance, especially since running very fast has a definite time limit based on the aging body. The majority of athletes who make it to the Olympics disappear from public view after the Olympics, a competition which takes place every four years. All of the other sports competition events must be entered after passing tryouts and raising money for travel, coaches, equipment and living expenses. Those who win first place, necessarily only a few, end up being a spokesman for a sports product for a living for, maybe, a decade. Admittedly, that can be very lucrative, but only for a very very small, minute, almost invisibly small, percentage. Maddie certainly wasn't going to be one who made it to that circle of success. What do ex-star high school or college athletes do with their lives after the blown knee, the third concussion, the failure to ever finish or land in the top three places of every race or game in everyone's estimation after a promising beginning?
This is not the book to answer those questions, unfortunately. But it definitely makes the case the various worlds involving the development and support of athletes should be doing more soul-searching in how they support the person and not just the bodies of athletes.
The cover blurb is accurate, so I have copied it:
From noted ESPN commentator and journalist Kate Fagan, the heartbreaking and vital story of college athlete Madison Holleran, whose death by suicide rocked the University of Pennsylvania campus and whose life reveals with haunting detail and uncommon understanding the struggle of young people suffering from mental illness today
If you scrolled through the Instagram feed of 19-year-old Maddy Holleran, you would see a perfect life: a freshman at an Ivy League school, recruited for the track team, who was also beautiful, popular, and fiercely intelligent. This was a girl who succeeded at everything she tried, and who was only getting started.
But when Maddy began her long-awaited college career, her parents noticed something changed. Previously indefatigable Maddy became withdrawn, and her thoughts centered on how she could change her life. In spite of thousands of hours of practice and study, she contemplated transferring from the school that had once been her dream. When Maddy's dad, Jim, dropped her off for the first day of spring semester, she held him a second longer than usual. That would be the last time Jim would see his daughter.
WHAT MADE MADDY RUN began as a piece that Kate Fagan, a columnist for espnW, wrote about Maddy's life. What started as a profile of a successful young athlete whose life ended in suicide became so much larger when Fagan started to hear from other college athletes also struggling with mental illness. This is the story of Maddy Holleran's life, and her struggle with depression, which also reveals the mounting pressures young people, and college athletes in particular, face to be perfect, especially in an age of relentless connectivity and social media saturation.
Fagan examines the pressures student athletes feel from everyone as well as themselves in athletic performance.
-The increasing number of and neverending physical intensity of the workouts and the toll on the body.
-The social reinforcement and internalization and the mental shaping of personal thoughts about quitting and quitters replacing one's true feelings and ideas.
-Lack of personal authenticity and being unable to discuss that with anyone.
-Fagan didn't say, but I think being inexperienced with the unexpected road curves of life suddenly turning up and ruining all of your plans for your life.
The unexpected road curves I think Maddy apparently faced was the isolation of a big impersonal university and the realization she was fifth best, not first as she was in her smaller high-school world despite her best efforts. Fagan believes this, too, I think. I also think a secondary cause was her unwillingness or inability to accept her limitations and thus needing to lower the bar on her expectations. She must have put her entire fortune, so to speak, meaning her sense of self, on what she thought was a done deal - being without peer as an athlete. That rug was pulled out from under her feet. She also apparently suffered from an anxiety disorder, which seems to be a more common problem with today's young generation. At least, more psychologists are beginning to sound the alarm of anxiety disorders becoming common among young people. They suspect it is the texting, the Emojis standing in for actual emotion and personal contact, the increased level of social performance and appearance of perfection required on social media. Comments must be glammed up, pictures must be made beautiful, life events must be exaggerated into either a positive or humorous outcome, or the dull and ordinary must be made cute or interesting, to gather in 'likes'. Real-life feelings/desires and imperfections are hidden under a false social self for profit and advancement both socially and financially.
Maybe this falsification of the external self since a person was a child leads to being empty of a real self to rely on when things go bad. Say goodbye to the authenticity of self! Say hello to increased depression and suicidal thoughts.
Continuing with my own personal observations:
I believe often no room is made for personal life evolutions for celebrities, for example, whether they are big fish in a small pond or large pond, being continuously in the limelight. For instance, the kid video gamer who becomes a millionaire from his YouTube channel; but then finds himself tired of it but he needs to continue with it because of financial pressures and being unable to tolerate the loss of face and 'love' in disappointing his fans. The millionaire kid singer who wants to sing jazz when he grows up instead of pop songs and loses his audience and financial support.
Then the seemingly relentless unceasing judgement in schools or social media today of one's looks, mistakes, life choices because of the technology of cell phone cameras and the Internet. The Internet never forgets anything uploaded online. Mistakes are forever today. Failures are forever today. Evolving out of an interest or talent is unforgivable today. There is no such thing as moving on from being, for example, the best cook, the best programmer, the best gamer, in one's supposedly 'close admirers' circle of social media. If one does move on - omg, the rancor, the rage, the verbal abuse, of admirers!
Just saying.
I have never been a Goodreads star reviewer going by the number of 'likes' I've observed other reviewers gather in. Sometimes I feel pangs about that, especially considering I've been here since 2010 and that I have written hundreds of reviews. My reviews are apparently unpopular and rejected by most! It does give me some 'ouch!' effect on my day sometimes.
However, my goal in reading and writing reviews on Goodreads since I became a member changed from keeping a book diary to satisfying myself in seeing who the authentic me is. I discover who I am in writing. Feelings and ideas which feel inchoate and disturbingly chaotic within me mysteriously become something I can grasp and feel more clearly when I write, sort of observing the Schrodinger's cat trapped in the box within my head. The endorphins flow for me in seeing in print who I am, having sorted myself out by writing! That is a powerful inducement, discovering what my authentic self is by writing - even more than writing to please a crowd and earn 'likes'. But I do not have a career or any financial interest in reviewing. I did not grow up or live most of my life with a social media image I have to maintain for my contacts or any admirers.
The university coach required before- and after-classes workouts every day. In Maddie's high school, she was expected to only work out three days a week after school. The pressure to perform was less shrill in high school, and of course, she was a part of a team of friends with whom she often partied and relaxed, people with whom she could more or less be herself. However, it is clear she was a driven personality, even in high school. She had a relentless drive to be the best.
She played soccer in high school where she excelled. She loved soccer. When she went to University, she went as a track athlete - running, because that is how she could get into an Ivy League University. Choosing to play soccer instead of track meant getting a scholarship to an ordinary college.
But what if she had been number one in the sport of track at college? I thought about this after finishing the book.
I couldn't help noticing there was no discussion of what might come for most athletes after college. Do people expect all college athletes to become coaches or what, after college? There are only so many coaching jobs. Is coaching, maybe being an ordinary coach as well, fulfilling after a being a star athlete, or less than? What other kind of paying job is there for those who can sprint and/or run for a long distance, especially since running very fast has a definite time limit based on the aging body. The majority of athletes who make it to the Olympics disappear from public view after the Olympics, a competition which takes place every four years. All of the other sports competition events must be entered after passing tryouts and raising money for travel, coaches, equipment and living expenses. Those who win first place, necessarily only a few, end up being a spokesman for a sports product for a living for, maybe, a decade. Admittedly, that can be very lucrative, but only for a very very small, minute, almost invisibly small, percentage. Maddie certainly wasn't going to be one who made it to that circle of success. What do ex-star high school or college athletes do with their lives after the blown knee, the third concussion, the failure to ever finish or land in the top three places of every race or game in everyone's estimation after a promising beginning?
This is not the book to answer those questions, unfortunately. But it definitely makes the case the various worlds involving the development and support of athletes should be doing more soul-searching in how they support the person and not just the bodies of athletes.
"Some stories simply touch us more deeply as they reach right into our hearts, settle there, and never leave." - Kate Fagan
This story is that for me. As I reached the chapter of her death, I found myself awake at 3 AM wondering why this had to happen, who do I know suffering this unspeakable (to Maddy) pain, what can I do to help? A week later, and Maddy is still at the forefront of my mind every day. Her story is so many emotions for so many different people and Kate did a wonderful job portraying those emotions for those closest to Maddy.
I'm a runner. I run almost every day - not as much as Maddy, but I find joy in the wondering and being inside my own head. And I can easily see how being in your own head isn't always the best place to be, especially as a young woman in a new environment competing at the highest level. So many tried to help but so many failed. Failed like Maddy thought she was but to everyone else, her persona was hard to read and seemed like she had the 'perfect' life. Did they really know what she was truly experiencing? Do I know what my closest friends are truly feeling?
Society puts such a heightened expectation on us to be perfect. Failure isn't an option. If you are not the best, then you are weak. Why is that? Who decided this was the expectation? My struggle with anxiety is different from Maddy's (almost everyone has a different form probably since there are so many variables) but on a certain level, I reason with her on the expectation of failure not being an option because that's how I was raised.
My niece asked me to help her shoot a basketball. She's 4. We spent an hour on the court going through the motions, practicing, perfecting. The moment she made her first basket, we were jumping and screaming for joy. But why? Why did we have to aim for perfection? Why didn't I cheer when she first tried? Why didn't I praise her for asking for help with trying something new? Why did I put the expectation on her that we weren't going to sleep until she made that basket? I'm the beginning of her problems. I can do better.
Because of Maddy's story, I'm hoping to start embracing the imperfections, speaking more openly about my feelings, not striving for perfection, but looking at life through moments that make me happy. We need to do our part in acknowledging the public health crisis that is mental health among our youth and young adults and start being more kind to one another. Thank you, Kate, for bringing this story to life and being a beacon of hope to so many suffering in the shadows. This should be a required read, or even just the article 'Split Image,' to graduating seniors about to endeavor onto an unknown adventure after high school because it is not communicated well the changes that are about to happen to your life.
This story is that for me. As I reached the chapter of her death, I found myself awake at 3 AM wondering why this had to happen, who do I know suffering this unspeakable (to Maddy) pain, what can I do to help? A week later, and Maddy is still at the forefront of my mind every day. Her story is so many emotions for so many different people and Kate did a wonderful job portraying those emotions for those closest to Maddy.
I'm a runner. I run almost every day - not as much as Maddy, but I find joy in the wondering and being inside my own head. And I can easily see how being in your own head isn't always the best place to be, especially as a young woman in a new environment competing at the highest level. So many tried to help but so many failed. Failed like Maddy thought she was but to everyone else, her persona was hard to read and seemed like she had the 'perfect' life. Did they really know what she was truly experiencing? Do I know what my closest friends are truly feeling?
Society puts such a heightened expectation on us to be perfect. Failure isn't an option. If you are not the best, then you are weak. Why is that? Who decided this was the expectation? My struggle with anxiety is different from Maddy's (almost everyone has a different form probably since there are so many variables) but on a certain level, I reason with her on the expectation of failure not being an option because that's how I was raised.
My niece asked me to help her shoot a basketball. She's 4. We spent an hour on the court going through the motions, practicing, perfecting. The moment she made her first basket, we were jumping and screaming for joy. But why? Why did we have to aim for perfection? Why didn't I cheer when she first tried? Why didn't I praise her for asking for help with trying something new? Why did I put the expectation on her that we weren't going to sleep until she made that basket? I'm the beginning of her problems. I can do better.
Because of Maddy's story, I'm hoping to start embracing the imperfections, speaking more openly about my feelings, not striving for perfection, but looking at life through moments that make me happy. We need to do our part in acknowledging the public health crisis that is mental health among our youth and young adults and start being more kind to one another. Thank you, Kate, for bringing this story to life and being a beacon of hope to so many suffering in the shadows. This should be a required read, or even just the article 'Split Image,' to graduating seniors about to endeavor onto an unknown adventure after high school because it is not communicated well the changes that are about to happen to your life.
Couldn't put down and has kept me thinking about all of the kids on social media and the stigma of mental illness since I finished.
I think the message is important and there are some great lines and parts of the book, but I think it probably was better as an article. The story felt too drawn out. More like 2.5 stars.
