Book’s name: “Head over heels”

Author of the book: Hannah Orenstein

Genre: YA romance, sports romance, fiction.

Publishing Company: Atria Books

Stars: 4/5

Summary: Inspirational, motivational, heartwarming, sweet, emotional.

Avery Abrahams dreamed of being Olympic gymnast for her whole life and trained for it till one day her only breaks into smithereens with one fault, one disastrous performance ended with her injury. And her best friend took over her place, becoming Olympic champion, succeeding everything she wanted. As a final nail in her coffin: she got married with their strict, abusive coach Dimitri: The very same man, she trained with for years and the man who never called and asked her if she was okay after her big injury ended her career.

She leaves the town to move to LA for college education in UCLA but she cannot adapt in her life because getting drunk, partying too much and after dropping school, she starts dating a football star but 4 years later, he dumps her.

Now she’s coming to her home sweet home, heartbroken, jobless, aimless for living with her family house covered with her photos of her competitions, her trophies. And the very same night, she has a family dinner mixed with their interrogation what she’s going to do with her life, she gets a phone call Ryan she has known from her training days and had a crush on him years ago. After winning gold metals, Ryan changes his career direction to become a coach and now he asks Avery to assist her training promising young gymnast named Hallie. Avery hesitates to say yes but after seeing TMZ reports of her ex-lover dating a swim-suit model and experiencing a disastrous Tinder sate of her own, she feels like she has to do something with her life and she gets the offer.

This sweet, moving, emotional story reminded me of Lucy Score’s Rock Bottom Girl but this one is more thought-provoking, serious, dealing with metoo movement, abuse, self-destruction. This is powerful women’s fiction more than romance. I really enjoyed Ryan and Avery’s chemistry and Ryan lost his brownie points (I think he lost his all credits till he does honorable, praising things for honoring the lives of hard working and fighting women!)so many times I wanted to punch him for his obnoxious moves and passive manners.

This is motivational second chances, learning from your mistakes and loving yourself book with heartfelt and positive messages. It’s a great feel-good, keep smiling and finding you inner power not to give up book!  I only cut one star because of romance parts. (Slow burn but also hero’s indecisive moves around heroine made me a little irritated.) But it’s still great 4 starred, remarkable and motivational reading!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for sharing this meaningful ARC with me in exchange my honest review.