Hardcover, 240 pages
Published Nov. 10, 2020 by Penguin Press.
Man, is this book bad. Like, not atrocious, but just a not good way of approaching any of this stuff. I sort of understand wanting to deal with your getting to where you are in a chronological order, but, I think it flops hard, and not in a way the ref will fall for.
Nice book. The stories about her matches are a bit boring for a non soccer fan and the level of writing is not very high. Still I found it a nice read. What an inspirational person she is, fighting a just cause for Black lives, gay rights and fair pay for women soccer players.
I’m not a big sports fan, and if it were not for the negative press, (“She took off her jersey and, gasp, exposed her sports bra!” “She’s a lesbian with pink hair who’s having a Twitter spat with [the orange fascist occupying the White House]!”) I would probably not even be aware that more than one US Women’s Soccer Team has won the World Cup at all. But I share two very salient aspects of my life with Megan Rapinoe: I’m gay, and I grew up in Redding, California. So knowing that Rapinoe had written about her coming of age a gay person in the conservative little burg whence I did likewise inspired me to read “One Life.”
I’m glad I did. It’s a fun read. Of course, I enjoyed all the parts about my hometown, but even the sports narratives were gripping. She makes the soccer interesting and exciting …
I’m not a big sports fan, and if it were not for the negative press, (“She took off her jersey and, gasp, exposed her sports bra!” “She’s a lesbian with pink hair who’s having a Twitter spat with [the orange fascist occupying the White House]!”) I would probably not even be aware that more than one US Women’s Soccer Team has won the World Cup at all. But I share two very salient aspects of my life with Megan Rapinoe: I’m gay, and I grew up in Redding, California. So knowing that Rapinoe had written about her coming of age a gay person in the conservative little burg whence I did likewise inspired me to read “One Life.”
I’m glad I did. It’s a fun read. Of course, I enjoyed all the parts about my hometown, but even the sports narratives were gripping. She makes the soccer interesting and exciting (it may have helped that with the exception of the 2019 WC, I did not know the outcome of any of the games she described until she got to the final whistle.) And I really appreciated her eloquent and necessary discussions of the systemic White Supremacist culture that permeates this country and has done so since the continent was colonized. Brava, Megan.
