Avery was an Olympic gymnast hopeful, who had a sudden, tragic injury that kept her from qualifying. Years later, she’s just been dumped by her football star boyfriend in LA, so she returns to her hometown in Massachusetts. She feels purposeless and has still not been able to fully move on from the disappointment of not going to the Olympics. Enter Ryan, a former gymnast turned coach she knew in her teen years, who offers her a job helping coach Olympic hopeful Hallie. As she begins to fall for Ryan, she also struggles to overcome her past insecurities and stand up against the cruelties she and other young, female athletes faced at the hands of doctors and coaches, whether it be emotional or sexual abuse.

This book had more depth than I expected, focusing on the abuse that many young, impressionable, female athletes receive. While not graphic, it discusses the emotional abuse from some coaches - body shaming, name calling, etc - and sexual abuse from doctors. It mirrors the publicity happening today with the discussion of doctors being able to take advantage of vulnerable athletes for years.

The romance was on the lighter side and Ryan irked me a bit. I felt like things wrapped up a bit too neatly in that department. But overall, it was well written and informative, I know next to nothing about gymnastics so a lot of the terms used were new to me.

When I initially read the premise of this novel, I thought it was going to be the same as The Bronze, which I only watched for ten minutes before turning off. So I'm thankful that this novel was nothing like that movie, since I enjoyed Hannah Orenstein's previous novels and picked it up solely based on the fact that she wrote it.

While I've never been into gymnastics, I did enjoy the movie American Anthem when I was a kid. However, I never pay attention to the Olympics. Having said that Head Over Heels was an interesting look at competitive gymnastics. I liked the dynamic between Avery and Ryan, as well as between Avery and Hallie. Avery was relatable in a lot of ways, even though I have almost 20 years on her. Hannah's detailed use of description allowed me to really see Hallie in her competitions, as well as all the characters and settings.

The story dealt really well with a current issue in the field of gymnastics and handled the topic as sensitively as possible.

While it took more time for me to get into this novel, I enjoyed it after it picked up the pace. I look forward to seeing what Hannah comes up with next.

Movie casting suggestions:
Avery: Zoey Deutch
Ryan: Patrick Schwarzenegger
Jasmine: Nathalie Emmanuel
Hallie: Reylynn Caster
Dimitri: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Sara: Kelli Berglund

I spent eight years of my naive young life convinced I was going to be an Olympic gymnast. The only two snags were 1. I was just not that good and 2. I had way too much of that dreaded 'F' word...Fear. I found my strength in dance and the rest of my adolescence was spent in that world competing. Reading HEAD OVER HEELS was nostalgia for me in both good ways and bad. 🤸🏻‍♀️
•
I absolutely loved Avery and her journey. Her life after a career ending injury left her aimless and unmotivated but after a call from an old crush asking her to be a coach for an Olympic hopeful, everything changes for her. Watching her go from lost to finding herself and finding her strength again while becoming a coach was incredible. She was so vulnerable the last few years after losing gymnastics that seeing her find a voice and confidence as a coach had me cheering for her and fist pumping like a champ. Another aspect I really loved was how she dealt with healing after years of training with an emotionally abusive coach. This book addresses the sexual abuse gymnasts have suffered through as well as the emotional abuse coaches inflict upon these young girls. While I didn't experience this emotional abuse in the gymnastics world, I definitely did in the dance world. Ever seen Dance Moms? Picture that and you'd be close to what it was like.🤸🏻‍♀️
•
I adored the romance between Avery and Ryan! It had my heart fluttering with how adorable their moments together were, I was rooting for them to get it together! But honestly, the romance took a backseat to my excitement at being back in the gym. The gymnastics lingo and skills, time in the gym, competitive spirit felt like I was putting on my old grips; it felt familiar and comforting. I was obsessed with reading this book! I wanted an 800 page book of her training and competing because I couldn't get enough of this world. I felt like this book had a great balance of fun gymnastics time and real life implications of the abuse some of these athletes suffered. The aftermath of such intense competition and finding your own path was amazing and I highly recommend this book if you're a previous competitor or just love gymnastics!

Sorry, didn't care for this. It felt very disjointed...had a hard time finishing it. Characters felt all over the place.

The writing is annoying and the main character is so obnoxious. I couldn't finish this one. The cover is also very drab. I am just not impressed.

Having missed out on watching the Olympics this year I was really excited for the chance to live in an Olympic gymnastics-based romance, and though this wasn’t quite what I was hoping for, I did enjoy reading it.

I think it would have been better marketed as chicklit rather than a romance, because the romance isn’t really the focal point and I wasn’t really crazy about the love story that was there. I wanted more tension and buildup than what we got – it all happened too quickly and easily. And then the love interest never redeemed himself for me after their main conflict so from that point on I couldn’t really root for them.

I did enjoy all the female relationships in this book, those were really the highlight. I think if those had been even more developed it would have made a big difference for me. The inclusion of the sexual assault scandal felt a bit out of place – it was mentioned too much for it be a background thing in the story but not enough for it to really make an impact.

Overall, this is a light and easy read, but was a bit too bland for me and lacked the focus and oomph that I was looking for.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A @beautyandthebook best of 2020 Contemporary Pick!

Orenstein does a wonderful job at handling the world of competitive gymnastics - including the pressures, challenges and sadly, sexual assault that have become too commonplace in this world. She writes a story that does not feel exploitative of the situation while still being informative, shining light on an issue, and of course, since this is fiction, creating a compulsively readable story. Another winner from Orenstein!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52765013-head-over-heels

This book was unfortunately pretty lukewarm for me. I was not invested in the love story, but I was definitely here for our main character working through her journey.

I was provided and ARC copy of this book via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

I absolutely loved this book. It is definitely one of my top favorite reads this year! I loved all the gymnastics talk in the book, it made me feel like I was there experiencing it with them. I have always loved this sport, and loved reading a book based around it!

Avery was supposed to head to the Olympics when one performance changed all that. Avery returns home, and is looking for a fresh start. Ryan calls one day to ask if she will come back to her old gym and help train a young gymnast. Avery is excited for a second chance and getting to work with her old crush!

I loved the chemistry between Avery and Ryan. All the characters in this book were great. I think Avery and Hallie had the sweetest relationship as well. This book is all about second chances, and learning to work through self-doubt. If you like books about sports, I would highly recommend this one!

This is my first Hannah Orenstein book and I loved it! It had a great storyline, was wonderfully written and had witty dialogue. I also enjoyed that it wasn't super-duper focused on the romance storyline but also included more on Avery's growing into a better version of herself. I'll definitely be checking out her previous titles and look forward to reading more from this author.

This book also made me super sad that the Olympics were postponed this year!

Mint the strongest romance I’ve read lately, but I appreciated the inclusion of current topics, trauma, and forgiveness. And I’m a sucker for US gymnastics.

Head Over Heels is the perfect romance to help us bide time until the Olympics come back next year. It's refreshing to see a gymnast love story!
This book was able to perfectly balance the lighter romantic story line with the darker issues prevalent in the the world of elite sports.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Head over Heels. The gymnastic background was great and Avery was a fantastic protagonist. I feel like there could have been more depth in the abuse aspect. Especially when it came to coaching. I'm hopeful for a sequel with Jasmine ot Sara as the lead

Head Over Heels by Hannah Orenstein was not originally on my TBR for November. I had a few extra minutes one day and I really needed to take my mind off of things. Luckily I had this on my kindle app from @netgalley and started it. ⁣
⁣
This book follows Avery. In her prime she was an elite gymnast who was on her way to the Olympics when she suffered a career ending injury. It’s now years later and she has just gone through a break up. She’s returning home back to the town where her old best friend is now married to their old abusive trainer. Avery is asked by Ryan to help her coach a new gymnast who is preparing to try and make the 2020 Olympic team.⁣
⁣
❤️Book Review❤️⁣
⁣
I really liked this book and seeing Avery’s journey. It was a romance, but she also has a lot of personal growth along the way. Hannah Orenstein really brings you into the beautiful and the ugly side of the gymnast world. By the end things came together a little too quickly and nicely for my liking. This book takes place over a year time and some of the things that happen in the end seemed unrealistic in that time frame. The romance was sweet. Overall it was a book that I really enjoyed though. I’m curious if there will be a companion book.⁣
⁣
4 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣
⁣
Do you like books that have sports elements in them?⁣
⁣
#books #bookstragram #bookofthemonth #netgalley #fallreading #romancebooks #contemporarybooks #beautifulbooks #illustratedcovers

I expected this to be a cute, easy read and while it was that, it was also more than that too. It looked at the impact losing your dreams can have on someone’s mental health and I thought that aspect of the book was very well done.
While gymnastics plays a large part in this book I didn’t know anything at all about gymnastics going in and I still very much enjoyed it. Would recommend this one!

I really liked this one! It was fun being immersed in the world of gymnastics and these athletes competing and honing their skills. I enjoyed Avery’s growth and all of her relationships. I love Hannah Orenstein’s writing, definitely won’t be the last book I read by her.

Head Over Heels is a book about gymnastics, but it's more than that. It's a story about rescuing oneself from the pressures that are put on you by society, or striving for Olympic excellence, or just what is in your own head.

While there is a lot of gymnastic lingo laced throughout this book, it's easy enough to not get tripped up in it if you aren't a gymnast or gymnastic fan. Avery Abrams was an Olympic hopeful. She grew up with the extreme pressures that go along with that. So once she was forced to move back home, it wasn't her first choice to start training a new up and coming Olympic hopeful alongside her teenage crush.

This was a fast-paced read full of determination, motivation, grief, love, as well as an advocation of social pressures on body image, mental health and sexual assault.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hannah Orenstein for my copy of Head over Heels, for an honest review. Avery Abrams, is a turning point in her life. She was a once world class gymnast.. who almost had it all and now she is a stay at home girlfriend.. who needs something new. The story starts years after Avery Abrams, misses a chance to go to the Olympics. She is lost where to go and what to do with her life and finds herself back in her hometown. As we know, going home isn’t easy. Avery has to set a new course, find a new career and hopefully mend a friendship or two. All while helping train an upcoming gymnast and facing her old coach. This story was a quick read. I found myself cheering Avery on.. The supporting characters had their own ups and downs and I really liked how the story lines ebbed and flowed. This was a four star read for me and I have recommended it to friends and family. I have a feeling you will enjoy this read as much as I did during these trying times.

As a former gymnast, I was very excited to read this book. When I say former gymnast, I mean when I was 5 and had all of the aspirations of being an Olympian one day. Obviously, that never happened, but I was very into the idea of this kind of book. A romance mixed with a gymnastics twist? Sign me up.

This was my first Hannah Orenstein novel and I enjoyed it. There were some things about the writing that I was a little bit unsure of, but it overall was a cute story.

The story was a overtaken with gymnastics. I love gymnastics, but that was really the main focus of this novel. I am a romance novel lover, and I was looking forward to having the romance surrounding the gymnastics since that’s what this book was classified as. There was a hard time with me trying to merge the two plots of gymnastics and romance.

I appreciated the hard sides of gymnastics and reading about how hard it is to become an Olympian. I liked reading about the different characters and how interesting their lives with gymnastics was.

I also appreciated Hannah Orenstein including harsh topics like depression from losing a dream and the issues that come from emotional abuse from a relationship. I think that this was a very important part of this novel.

Overall, this novel was pretty good. I gave it a 3 star rating because it was right in the middle for me. It wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t terrible. I would consider this book more of a contemporary fiction, not a contemporary romance. If you like gymnastics, I’d definitely pick this one up.

Such a great story — a fun romance with a side of Olympic flair, which we're all desperately needing right now! I also thought the author did a great job tackling the more ugly sides of the sport. A romance with a lot of heart.