by Gracie Gold
First published 2024
Gracie Gold became America's darling at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, captivating audiences as the beautiful blonde figure skater who represented everything wholesome about winter sports. Media outlets from The New Yorker to Teen Vogue celebrated her, and she found herself baking cookies with Taylor Swift. But behind the glittering performances and perfect smile, Gold battled a vicious internal voice she named "outofshapeworthlessloser." Her bulimia worsened as family relationships cracked under pressure. Sexual assault left additional scars. The relentless demands of coaches who accepted nothing short of gold medals pushed her toward suicidal thoughts. In 2017, she entered treatment, publicly described as help for eating disorders and anxiety but privately addressing her desire to end her life. Gold strips away the facade of Olympic glory to reveal the brutal cost of elite athletics on a young woman's psyche. She confronts family dysfunction, abusive coaching methods, and federation politics that prioritized medals over mental health. This memoir exposes how a society obsessed with appearances and perfection nearly destroyed someone who seemed to embody both.
Genres: addiction, abuse, autobiography, mental-illness, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: memoir, personal-development
Period: 2014 Sochi Olympics, 2017
352 pages · Hardcover · Crown
Content warnings: abuse, depression, eating-disorder, mental-illness, suicidal-ideation