One Life

An excellent audio read by Pinoe herself. Not a slight to her, but she's not a writer by trade, so I was expecting to like this but I was not expecting to be blown away by the book overall. Joke's on me because this was such an impressive piece of writing. Liz and I listened to it together and had to keep pausing to talk about events we remembered but also about how good the writing was or how she perfectly grew the story from the seeds she had been planting. The whole thing is structurally impressive. She also does a great job conveying her advocacy and activism points in a way that acknowledges and works through her privilege but also weaves these ideas organically into her stories without feeling like they're didactic lessons to the audience or lowering the complexity of the ideas for readers newer to this work. Perfect tone and balance, one of my favorite reads this year and one that should have a massively wide audience.

*4.5 stars

Being a U.S soccer fan it only made sense for me to pick up the book. As much as I understood the book was an autobiography, I would have loved more content on the more recent events. 

4 stars queen Rapinoe

Social justice sports memoir! It's weird to reread about the last few years and how much was going on before covid. Rapinoe's personality really comes through in this memoir and while it hits much of the expected sports memoir highlights : being exceptional at a young age, family, playing on an international stage, dealing with coach personality conflicts, the work that being a full-time sport athlete means - we also get to see Rapinoe talk about learning about and advocating social justice issues.