A review by cboylewight
Brave Enough by Jessie Diggins, Todd Smith
5.0
I read this a month after it came out, which was a little while ago so bear with me haha. This is Jessie Diggins, in a nutshell. She writes about her childhood, skiing with her family in Afton, Minnesota and the start of her skiing career. As she goes through her experiences, she details her journey through her eating disorder while she was training and racing intensely. The writing is powerful throughout, but it’s especially powerful when she talks about how far this eating disorder really went and that she almost died because of it. She goes into a recovery program called The Emily Program and later on in the book she writes about how difficult that journey was, how she fell off the wagon several times and it was only after hearing specific words from friends and family that she understood that it wasn’t just hurting her but also hurting them.
After triumphing over this eating disorder, she continues on to talk about her emotions in winning the first ever US cross country gold with her teammate Kikkan Randall at the 2018 Olympics. She talks about the pain cave and how amazing her teammates, coaches, friends, and family are.
The writing is wonderfully personal and draws you into her life. She makes you feel like you are hearing this story from her as a close friend.
One other cool thing, I’m in the book! Sort of lol I met Jessie Diggins when she came to my hometown of Bethel, ME to do a workshop with us and then led us in some Zumba dancing! There’s a page with a photo of the group of us middleschoolers and her with some of her teammates. I still have the signed poster in my room haha.
After triumphing over this eating disorder, she continues on to talk about her emotions in winning the first ever US cross country gold with her teammate Kikkan Randall at the 2018 Olympics. She talks about the pain cave and how amazing her teammates, coaches, friends, and family are.
The writing is wonderfully personal and draws you into her life. She makes you feel like you are hearing this story from her as a close friend.
One other cool thing, I’m in the book! Sort of lol I met Jessie Diggins when she came to my hometown of Bethel, ME to do a workshop with us and then led us in some Zumba dancing! There’s a page with a photo of the group of us middleschoolers and her with some of her teammates. I still have the signed poster in my room haha.