A review by liralen
On Top of Glass: My Stories as a Queer Girl in Figure Skating by Karina Manta

4.0

It's always a pleasant surprise to pick up a book because you're interested in its themes (in this case: skating and queer identity) and to find that it's actually well done to boot. This memoir skates close to an essay format but ends up being quite a cohesive look at competitive skating—as well as questioning sexuality in a conservative area (and what is in many ways a conservative sport); dealing with body image, an eating disorder, and pressure to physically conform (in what is also a very image-focussed sport); and normal questions of growing up and fitting in.

Sometimes it's big things, and sometimes it's little ones, like Manta's shift from loving the process of planning new costumes:

My very first skating dress was a pink crushed-velvet number with a she'll-grow-into-it fit. At six years old, I asked my mom to sew a feather boa onto the sleeves because I had seen Oksana Baiul skate in a feather-laden dress on TV. The end result was a ridiculous and adorable outfit—a unique creation that made me feel superhuman when I put it on (although I probably looked less like a superhero and more like a bubblegum chicken). As I got older, I stayed heavily involved in the dressmaking process—sketching out designs on scraps of paper with my mom and carefully gluing patterns of gleeful rhinestones onto our creations. But at some point, the procedure lost its magic. My coaches started getting involved. Judges started making notes. I was told not to wear halter dresses because they made my boobs look too big. I was not to wear white because the color emphasized the rolls of my stomach. I was told not to wear shorts or pants because they were against the rules. (Yes—in the sport of ice dance, there are rules against women wearing pants.) (216)

There's so much here, isn't there? There's the irony of being older (and being a more advanced skater) meaning less control over the creative process. There's the emphasis on weight: size seeming as important as skill, and boobs being something to hide because...because...I haven't figured this one out. Because they imply a healthy amount of body fat, I suppose, and we can't have that. The extremely binarily gendered way in which ice dancing operates—always male/female pairs; women apparently can't wear pants (and men presumably can't wear skirts); Manta is one of very few openly queer female figure skaters, because heteronormativity is a thing.

I'll leave it there—but it's worth looking up Manta's 2019 skate to 'Sweet Dreams' after reading.