CHALKED UP

From an eight-time member of the U.S. Gymnastics Team, a cautionary tale for children, parents and gymnastics coaches alike.

The author lived her young life for the balance beam, the uneven bars and the mat. From the age of three, when she did her first cartwheel, Sey slept, breathed and ate gymnastics. (Actually, sometimes she didn’t eat.) Her determination to push her body past its limits and maintain her disconcertingly tiny build eventually led to obsessive-compulsive behavior and anorexia, but her physical (and mental) ill health didn’t keep her from competing successfully at the highest level. In 1985, at 14, she qualified for the World Championships, only to see her dream almost end when she fell from the uneven bars and broke a femur. Against all logic, Sey successfully rehabbed from an injury that would have ended many careers; she came back in 1986 to become the U.S. National Gymnastics Champion and was named the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Athlete of the Year in gymnastics. In 1990, her body and soul ravaged, she limped away from the sport, graduated from Stanford, got married, had babies and wrote a book that will scare the hell out of many an aspiring gymnast. Sey’s coverage of her competitions are sparse (“I take a deep breath. Exhale. Calm my breathing. Slow. Slow down. This is it.”), but that’s fine. It’s what goes on outside of the spotlight and inside her head that makes the book so crucial for stage mothers, malleable preteens and obsessive teenagers. It’s admirable to aspire to become a champion gymnast, but Sey’s depiction of her roller-coaster adolescence makes the point that it’s far more important to have a happy, healthy and sane childhood.

Harrowing, creepy and compelling.