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A review by liralen
Pretty Good for a Girl: A Memoir by Leslie Heywood
2.0
Heywood came of age when it was a constant battle for a girl to be taken seriously as an athlete, to not be 'just one of the girls'.
And she wasn't -- Heywood excelled in track and cross-country, regularly smashing records and priding herself on running with the boys' team. Local papers regularly sang her praises, her times were competitive on a national level, and her dreams went beyond high school, beyond college, to the Olympics.
This picture that Heywood paints of herself, though, it's neither flattering nor meant to be. She's talented, and driven, and arrogant; she views boys as worthy of her competition but also as objects to use and discard; she both scorns other girls (for not being so fast, so driven, so sleek) and resents them deeply when they do present a challenge. She is determined that the brilliance of her star will eclipse all those around her—until she burns out. It makes for a fair amount of give and take in her look back at high school. Although she depicts her younger self as not a little bit mean, as so focused on winning that she lost out on other things, she also talks of that time as the peak of not only her running career but also her life. In some ways, at fifteen and sixteen I was most alive, and I've lived expecting my world to turn back to that place where I felt with conviction that I was the sun, some place of magnetic attraction (211). By the time she says that, though, it's already clear to the reader.
I don't mean to come down on Heywood for being a not-always-likeable teenager; I'd only find that problematic if she didn't seem, as a writer, to recognise her younger self's flaws. And if Heywood employed harsh measures in order to succeed, it was because those measures were necessary: she was working against a system that believed female athletes were second-rate, male athletes desperate to cut her down to size, and coaches who perpetrated incredible abuse. With better coaches, a more modern understanding of training (that included things like rest days), an ability to nourish her body as well as simply hone it, I imagine her perseverance could have taken her a long way in the world of running. As it is, following her body's rebellion, Heywood has found a different kind of success -- as a professor, as a bodybuilder. (It does strike me that it is less that she has lost that drive/arrogance/obsession and more that she has translated it to something more sustainable.)
Heywood's academic background is in poetry, which I suspect influences the writing in a big way. It reminds me of [b:Body Story|1532246|Body Story|Julia K. Depree|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347382041s/1532246.jpg|1524317] in that respect -- neither works well for me, style too often taking precedence over substance. That's a bit part of my sub-par rating, though I think the story she tells here is important.
And she wasn't -- Heywood excelled in track and cross-country, regularly smashing records and priding herself on running with the boys' team. Local papers regularly sang her praises, her times were competitive on a national level, and her dreams went beyond high school, beyond college, to the Olympics.
This picture that Heywood paints of herself, though, it's neither flattering nor meant to be. She's talented, and driven, and arrogant; she views boys as worthy of her competition but also as objects to use and discard; she both scorns other girls (for not being so fast, so driven, so sleek) and resents them deeply when they do present a challenge. She is determined that the brilliance of her star will eclipse all those around her—until she burns out. It makes for a fair amount of give and take in her look back at high school. Although she depicts her younger self as not a little bit mean, as so focused on winning that she lost out on other things, she also talks of that time as the peak of not only her running career but also her life. In some ways, at fifteen and sixteen I was most alive, and I've lived expecting my world to turn back to that place where I felt with conviction that I was the sun, some place of magnetic attraction (211). By the time she says that, though, it's already clear to the reader.
I don't mean to come down on Heywood for being a not-always-likeable teenager; I'd only find that problematic if she didn't seem, as a writer, to recognise her younger self's flaws. And if Heywood employed harsh measures in order to succeed, it was because those measures were necessary: she was working against a system that believed female athletes were second-rate, male athletes desperate to cut her down to size, and coaches who perpetrated incredible abuse. With better coaches, a more modern understanding of training (that included things like rest days), an ability to nourish her body as well as simply hone it, I imagine her perseverance could have taken her a long way in the world of running. As it is, following her body's rebellion, Heywood has found a different kind of success -- as a professor, as a bodybuilder. (It does strike me that it is less that she has lost that drive/arrogance/obsession and more that she has translated it to something more sustainable.)
Heywood's academic background is in poetry, which I suspect influences the writing in a big way. It reminds me of [b:Body Story|1532246|Body Story|Julia K. Depree|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347382041s/1532246.jpg|1524317] in that respect -- neither works well for me, style too often taking precedence over substance. That's a bit part of my sub-par rating, though I think the story she tells here is important.