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.