saraseelmeyer's review against another edition
3.5
i knew that i loved movies about investigative journalism, but apparently i like books about investigative journalism even more. there were times when this book felt a little too scattered (so many people to keep track of!) but overall a good, comprehensive history of larry nassar’s abuse and usag’s cover-up.
mald626's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
southernbellebooks's review against another edition
1.0
This would’ve been good but it pretty much just used the material off of “The Girls” and at that point, I would’ve just read that book instead. So that’s what I’m going to do.
ckjesq's review against another edition
2.0
Please please educate yourself - it’s parallel bars not horizontal - the OT is 5 not 4 and more - this book was written only to further exploit the victims and take $$ from them 1 let them tell this story but then again White males continue to “know best” and laude over others - skimming the book is how I finished it -
avalydia's review against another edition
4.0
Horrifying all the way around. All the more so because USAG/MSU continue to deflect responsibility for what they allowed Nassar to get away with for so long.
liralen's review against another edition
3.0
One of several books so far—and probably many more to come—about the abuse Larry Nassar inflicted on young gymnasts and the way the gymnastics world helped to perpetuate his crimes. This one is based in reportage rather than personal story, aiming to give more of an overview and timeline for what happened. I preferred the writing in [b:The Girls|43492058|The Girls An All-American Town, a Predatory Doctor, and the Untold Story of the Gymnasts Who Brought Him Down|Abigail Pesta|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546847676l/43492058._SY75_.jpg|67641089] (which Start by Believing references) and am not convinced that this adds a whole book's worth to the conversation, but there are a few things worth highlighting.
He told his gymnastics patients he had treatments that could alleviate their pain and allow them to continue practicing. He used his pelvic floor adjustments when other doctors might have explored options for surgery or other forms of treatment. One gymnast said she saw Nassar for months before someone recommended she get a bone scan when her pain continued to persist. The results showed she had eight fractures in her back. Whether the treatments worked was nearly irrelevant. They were enough to convince gymnasts and coaches they were safe to keep going at a time when stopping was not an option.*
I'm not sure why this is so shocking to me, but it is. It's not like Nassar's abuse would be any less horrific if, other than the abuse, he'd been treating gymnasts effectively. I'd still be perfectly happy that he's rotting in prison. But this really highlights the disregard for gymnasts' health: that he willfully ignored injuries with potentially devastating long-term effects in order to continue his abuse, and that other officials and adults involved weren't invested in making sure that gymnasts' health and wellness was actually being looked after—they were invested in taking the word of anyone who would tell them, honestly or not, that the gymnasts could train.
It is perhaps indicative of the anguish sexual assault victims experience when wrestling with the decision to share their stories publicly that for more than five months after the Larry Nassar story broke in the Indianapolis Star, not a single gymnast from the US national team, current or former, stepped forward to identify themselves by name as one of his victims. The national team gymnasts who’d filed civil lawsuits to that point had done so anonymously.
Yes, but I would love to see this taken further—it's not just a question of anguish but a question of suddenly becoming public figures not for their achievements but for trauma over which they had no control (and subject to unfair scrutiny and criticism and worse), and it's a question of possible retribution from the insular competitive gymnastics world, so so on. So...anguish, yes, but also a lot more context-specific things.
*No page numbers because Overdrive is terrible
He told his gymnastics patients he had treatments that could alleviate their pain and allow them to continue practicing. He used his pelvic floor adjustments when other doctors might have explored options for surgery or other forms of treatment. One gymnast said she saw Nassar for months before someone recommended she get a bone scan when her pain continued to persist. The results showed she had eight fractures in her back. Whether the treatments worked was nearly irrelevant. They were enough to convince gymnasts and coaches they were safe to keep going at a time when stopping was not an option.*
I'm not sure why this is so shocking to me, but it is. It's not like Nassar's abuse would be any less horrific if, other than the abuse, he'd been treating gymnasts effectively. I'd still be perfectly happy that he's rotting in prison. But this really highlights the disregard for gymnasts' health: that he willfully ignored injuries with potentially devastating long-term effects in order to continue his abuse, and that other officials and adults involved weren't invested in making sure that gymnasts' health and wellness was actually being looked after—they were invested in taking the word of anyone who would tell them, honestly or not, that the gymnasts could train.
It is perhaps indicative of the anguish sexual assault victims experience when wrestling with the decision to share their stories publicly that for more than five months after the Larry Nassar story broke in the Indianapolis Star, not a single gymnast from the US national team, current or former, stepped forward to identify themselves by name as one of his victims. The national team gymnasts who’d filed civil lawsuits to that point had done so anonymously.
Yes, but I would love to see this taken further—it's not just a question of anguish but a question of suddenly becoming public figures not for their achievements but for trauma over which they had no control (and subject to unfair scrutiny and criticism and worse), and it's a question of possible retribution from the insular competitive gymnastics world, so so on. So...anguish, yes, but also a lot more context-specific things.
*No page numbers because Overdrive is terrible