Winterland is a very interesting read, a fictionalized story of a gymnast in Soviet Russia. I loved the grit of this book, and how difficult it is to perform those beautiful gymnastic routines. It was a great tale of perseverance and strength.

Rae Meadows' WINTERLAND answers my forever question as to how a young person grows up to become an extraordinary athlete with exceptional discipline, professionalism, with nerves of steel. Through the story of Anya, Meadows plunges us into the excruciating routines and brutal expectations employed to create USSR gymnasts. Anya's background and experiences drew me into her story and made me a part of her world. A truly artful and engaging read that I will never forget. I received a copy of this book and these thoughts are my own, unbiased opinions.

A very immersive and compelling historical fiction narrative about life in the Soviet Union. It focuses primarily on Anya, a budding gymnast who begins an intense journey through the state run sports system. There are also side stories: her father Yuri, a true believer slowly being poisoned by his work; her mother Katerina, a ballerina who becomes disillusioned by socialism and goes missing; and her neighbor and chosen babushka Vera, who survived 10 years in a prison camp.

This book was equal parts gritty and beautiful. As a gymnastics fan (and once upon a time novice gymnast), I loved all the gymnastics scenes and descriptions, and couldn't help but search out images, videos, and stories of the real gymnasts and routines mentioned in the book. If you don't enjoy gymnastics (or dance or other olympic pursuits), you may find some of these passages a bit tiresome. I do think there is value in reading them as they don't sugarcoat the abuses the athletes experienced, and I think it's important to recognize that as there's an ongoing reckoning in many sports in all geographies about the human cost of the pursuit of perfection.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC, in exchange for this honest review.

I’m a huge gymnastics fan, and I’ve always been curious about the inner workings of Soviet-era gymnastics training, so I was very excited to get my hands on Winterland by Rae Meadows.

Winterland is a historical fiction novel that follows Anya, a little girl whose mother has disappeared. Anya shows great promise as a gymnast and is plucked from her school and put into a training center. The book follows her pursuit of gymnastics, as well as her journey with coming to terms with the loss of her mother. There is a side story about her neighbor and honorary babushka, Vera, whose backstory of time spent in a gulag serves to illustrate some of the horrors of living under communist rule.

Would I have enjoyed this book as much if I wasn’t such a big gymnastics fan? I’m not sure. Anya’s story is interesting, but I found the use of real gymnasts and real gymnastics world events to be the part that intrigued me in the most. I kept pausing my reading to watch the athlete’s routines on YouTube as they came up in the book.

Readers who like character-driven historical fiction and have an interest in gymnastics or Soviet-era sports should give it a try.

A character-driven look into the world of Soviet gymnastics. Told mainly from the point of view of Anya, it follows her journey of becoming a gymnast for the Soviet state from the age of 8. A rather bleak outlook for Anya, who despite loving gymnastics, knows that this particular lifestyle is one of determination and hard work, but also of injury, abuse, and stark competition. Anya's older neighbor, Vera, is one of the few people who worries about Anya's trajectory as a person, but even she is unable to do much about it. Vera's past also unfolds throughout the book and provides an interesting counterpoint, along with explaining more of Anya's mother's past. Overall a good book, even if the ending felt a bit sudden.

Another fantastic novel by Ms. Meadows. What gymnasts give up in Russia to become one of the best. How precarious it is and how fleeting it all can be.

The cover of this book is just stunning as well. It’s obvious that she immersed herself in Russian Culture of competitive gymnastics.

Never has a novel made me feel disgust, hope, overjoyed, fear, sadness--all of these emotions. What a stunningly gorgeous novel from Rae Meadows.

This one really reminded me of Maggie Shipstead's Great Circle, the writing and the story, which I also loved. So it was no surprise that this was a success for me.

This book felt so, so cold. I don't just mean this because it takes place inside the Arctic Circle, the feeling I felt while reading, Anya's and her family and friends' lives--they were so cold, so painful to read.

Meadows just does such a wonderful job of capturing the pressure all these characters are under, from themselves and the world around them. I felt so deeply for Anya who suffered a great amount of abuse from those who should have been watching out for her. She's not real, but she felt real, and she represents so many children who are exploited for political or financial gain all over the world still.

What I loved most about this novel is how Meadows shows change with the passing of time. To the reader and to the protagonist, this portion of their life seems to go on forever. When we see the time pass, though, and how much has changed, this time as a child seems so far away. It was so incredibly true to real life. How often do we miss the passing of time until everything has changed in our lives?

Meadows was inspired by the story of Olympic Soviet Gymnast Elena Mukhina who was paralyzed after being pressured to perform a dangerous trick she was not ready for. That is how I ended up spending my precious sleeping time on Wikipedia, reading about Soviet gymnasts. The story of how these children were taken advantage of is tragic. Seeing Anya's and Elena's story through felt like creating a little bit of justice. Rae Meadows did a beautiful job of this.

Winterland by Rae Meadows follows main character Anya after she is chosen at eight years old to train to be a gymnast for the Soviet Union in the 1970s.

This is a very character-driven novel. While there is the overarching plot of Anya moving through the gymnastics programs as she continues her training, the focus of the book is much more on interpersonal relationships and the characters themselves. You do get a few points of view, including from Anya's father as well as an older woman who is her neighbor and friend, Vera.

I felt that the book was just fine for me. It dragged in a few places, and while I wanted to know what would happen to the characters, I didn't feel entirely invested in their story and well-being. The details of the story are heartbreaking, but at times the writing felt stilted and devoid of emotion. This could be because these things are the norm or, at times, because they are through the eyes of a young girl who may not fully understand everything going on around her.

I enjoyed Vera's perspective, even though her storyline wasn't as connected to the main storyline throughout most of the book. I also enjoyed watching Vera and Anya gain friendships and how these relationships changed their characters.

Overall, if you have an interest in Soviet-era gymnastics and are drawn towards character-driven novels, I would say definitely give this a try!

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my opinion!

Such a gut wrenching story about the gymnasts in the Soviet Union in the 70s. So much sadness in this book as it follows a young Anya as she is rising in gymnastics to get up to the Olympic level.

I can't imagine feeling owned by the country and dealing with working through so many injuries and pressure (I'mnot sure that gymnasticshas gottenmuchbettereven in currenttimes(. This story gets into labor camps as well during Vera's part of the story. The bright spot at least though all the trauma was friendship.

Even though this book was slow in a few parts, you can really feel the heartbreak and emotions through the writing.

Thank you to Henry Holt and Netgalley for providing me a copy of this ARC for my honest review.

Anya is eight years old in 1973 when she is chosen for the USSR's elite gymnastics program. Her mother Katerina, a well-known ballet dancer, disappeared three years ago. Since then, Anya has been raised by her father Yuri, a worker in a Siberian copper mine, and her grandmotherly neighbor Vera, who survived a decade in a Soviet gulag. Anya's entry into the gymnastics program opens up a world of new opportunities for her: escape from Norilsk, her isolated hometown north of the Arctic Circle; a chance to help her family through a gymnastics-related government pension; a chance to bring fame and glory to her country on a worldwide stage. But in order to achieve greatness as an elite Soviet gymnast, she'll have to endure hardships and trials she never could have imagined.

With Winterland, Rae Meadows peels back the (iron) curtain to provide an evocative, intimate portrayal of Soviet life at the peak of the USSR's strength. Through vivid characters, she explores several facets of Soviet culture: the poor working conditions in the copper mines and the health issues the workers faced; the dark, tragic history of the gulags; the living conditions in the brutal Siberian climate; and, of course, the famed gymnastic program. Anya's experiences as a Soviet gymnast are the main focus of the book, and it's eye-opening, to say the least. The rigorous training and demand for perfection, the endless routine repetitions, the injections to numb the pain, being forced to compete when sick or injured, or to return to practice before a break is fully healed...It's visceral and brutal, it's corrupt and unrelenting, and it's all in the name of bringing glory to the Soviet Union.

Meadows' writing utterly transports the reader to this time and place; you can feel the Siberian chill deep in your bones, can sense the musk of fear, power, and anticipation lingering in the air of a training gym. Her writing is unsentimental and straightforward but still incredibly affecting. Winterland is a riveting novel about loss, redemption, and healing, explored through characters I won't soon forget.

What you'll get from this book!
1. A great sense of place in Northern Russia, Norilsk, where winter seems to always be present. When I searched the google maps and looked at the pictures, snow. It's all snowy streets. I literally felt cold reading this book.
2. You will also get a sense of the seriousness of gymnastics for the U.S.S.R. in the 1970's and for those involved. The girls bodies are for use of the country to achieve greatness for the eyes of the world.
3. The feel of Russia and the government during the Cold War era.

I am left wanting to read more about this time period! I enjoyed following Anya and her journey as a somewhat controlled child during her opportunity for greatness amongst the stringent training and competition. The book mainly follows her somewhat uneventful life except that it was great in the sense of her opportunity. Nothing extravagant happened, nothing shocking, I could have used more plot wise. By the end I was left with unanswered questions regarding some of the characters. So...if you've read it, let's chat.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for the advance e-copy in exchange for my honest review.

Terrific immersive atmospheric read. Anya is 8- 8- when she is chosen to become part of the Soviet gymnastic system. Her mother Katerina, a Bolshoi ballerina who moved with her father Yuri to Norilsk, went missing several years earlier, leaving Anya to be raised by Yuri with the help of Vera. Norilsk, where Yuri works as a metallurgist in the copper mines, was the site of the Gulag where Vera was held for years. Her story, of pre-Communist childhood, a happy marriage to a botanist, and then the heartbreaking sentence of her whole family to the Gulag, is fascinating and sad. Anya, however, is the focus here and it's sometimes hard to remember that she's just a child as she moves up in the competitive world of gymnastics. Everything is subjugated to the goal of making the Olympics. I didn't realize until I was finished that part of this is based on the true and tragic story of Elena Mukhina (I spent some time watching her performances). Anya's life is constricted in so many ways but she's got a big spirit. What happened to Katerina? And what about her bracelet. There are secrets here that are slowly revealed. I very much enjoyed this for the characters, the setting (you'll feel the cold) and the fact that I learned a great deal. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Yes it's a sports story and a coming of age tale but it's also more than those. Highly recommend.

Winterland is such a "Sarah" book (the story of a Russian gymnast in the Cold War era Soviet Union), but the execution didn't live up to expectations. The story is told in 2 arcs: Anya’s experience being chosen by the Russian Sports ministry to train to possibly join the National Team and the impact this had on her and her family AND Vera’s story (an older woman who lives in Anya’s apartment building and spent a considerable amount of time in one of the Soviet work camps). I loved Anya's gymnastics storyline: the loneliness, pressure and fear of failure, the lack of care for these athletes as humans, what it’s like to train at Round Lake (the real life National Team compound), and the small places she was able to find joy. BUT…I glazed over whenever we switched over to Vera’s story. It felt very straight up Historical Fiction (which isn’t my favorite) and I didn’t feel like it added much to the story. I also felt like including both storylines in such a short book (288 pages) made both of them feel a bit surface level. Readers who love traditional Historical Fiction might like Winterland more than I did.

1973 Soviet Union in the world of rising gymnasts. Think of Olga Korbut (USSR) and Nadia Comeneci (Romania). Young Anya, having moved to the intensely cold city of Norilsk, north of the Arctic Circle, so her parents could be good Communists building a better world. Her father Yuri and mother Katerina found it wasn't as they had hoped and her mother began to wish she could go back to her passion of dancing in the ballet. At the age of 5, Anya's mother just disappears. At school, Anya discovers an ability in gymnastics and all the kids want to be selected for a training program...to be like Olga Korbut, but Anya was selected above the others! The training is harsh, intense, and brutal at times and her life becomes long days of full time training with only a little time for a tutor and a small lunch in the course of 6 days a week at the gym. This story gave an me eye-opening look into the world of gymnastic training in the 70's in Communist USSR. It seems they train hard with sketchy medical care, coaches who took advantage of the some of the young girls, and a tremendous desire to achieve for themselves, their families (who were paid) and Mother Russia. I was left with unanswered questions at the end of the book, but got a realistic look inside this place and time in history we can recall, if you remember these early famous gymnasts! My thanks to Net Galley and Henry Holt Publishers for a copy of this e-book. Pub Day 11-29-22

Very tense and emotional ride, 5+ stars! I’ve always been extremely interested in Soviet Union history and also follow Olympic gymnastics closely, so I was over-the-moon when I heard about this book. Huge shout-out to #netgalley and Henry Holt and Co for allowing me to read a copy prior to publication.

First and foremost; this is a book centered on gymnastics and touches on very important ethical considerations within the sport. Anya’s father didn’t have many resources to provide for his daughter, so the idea of her getting the salary and support from the national team, no matter how brutal the training was, seemed like a rare opportunity that he strongly encouraged. Anya was a motherless child, raised in poverty by a grief-stricken father, a perfect recipe for vulnerability. Ever since being selected for the team, Anya’s “world shrunk to the size of a gym”, with her spending 8 hours a day with her coach, and only about an hour at home. Her father gradually stepped back from the role of a parent, and informally passed that responsibility onto her coach, who made all medical, dietary, and scheduling decisions for her life. Even when his actions and comments were abusive, Anya’s anger would be replaced by pride as soon as her coach acknowledged her progress and achievements. She was further under-protected when it came to the gymnastics doctor, who crossed many boundaries and was very reminiscent of the Larry Nassar case recently faced by USA Gymnastics. Many elite gymnasts join the sport at very young ages (even USA Olympians today often state they started in a gym around the ages of 4-7), so their worldview is malleable and easily taken advantage of by their superiors.

Gymnasts devote their lives to the sport, and the idea of life after gymnastics almost seems unimaginable. This mentality is what makes it easier to comprehend doing backflips on a snapped ankle, tumbling on a broken tibia; long-term consequences, such as arthritis and deformed joints, seems out of the scope of reality when you can’t imagine a life where you’re not competing anymore.

Meadows provides a beautiful and factually accurate portrayal of the 1980 USSR Olympics gymnastics team. Most names are unchanged, apart from Elena “Grishina”, who is heavily based on the real-world Elena Mukhina. If you’re unfamiliar with her (very tragic) story, I strongly recommend watching videos or reading up on it. As a side note, I found it very clever to write in that Anya get the Bronze in the Olympic games. In actuality, the bronze metal was not awarded that year since Maxi and Nadia tied for silver, so it felt like a neat way to give it to the fictional character without bumping a real-life medalist out.

Beyond just gymnastics, this book also provides a very immersive narrative on the Soviet Union. Meadows mentioned she referenced Alexievich’s Secondhand Time (one of my favorite non-fiction books!), and it shows. The book approaches a multi-generational storyline in a unique way, with having three women at different ages flashback to important moments in history. She accurately captures the frequently reported feeling of homesickness for a home that no longer exists, and how opportunities to succeed were not only based on skill or talent, but also on your family lines and political beliefs. I particularly liked the quote “This is the Soviet Union after all. Change is a glacier.” I interpreted this in multiple ways; yes, change occurred very slowly within the USSR, but there were periods of extreme change and/or collapse in very short bursts as well, much like a glacier finally collapsing into the ocean around a crack that has been forming for a long period of time.

Lastly, all three women in the story recount the mysterious disappearance of Anya’s mother. I was particularly touched by Anya’s sporadic recollections and sorrow for a mother that she was slowly forgetting year after year. Her mother made a lasting impression, both in presence and in absence, in Anya’s life. I know I’m an outlier for saying this; but I appreciated how the book concluded this sub-plot. I don’t believe a concrete resolution would have been appropriate, given how many families never received a resolution for their missing or murdered family members during the fall of the Soviet era. We are left to make our own assumptions about what happened, just like many people who lived through the time were forced to do.

Winterland by Rae Meadows was an interesting historical fiction novel about a young Russian gymnast during the 1970's. Anya is just eight years old when she is accepted into the School of Sport in Norilsk, which is near the Arctic Circle in northern Siberia. Anya and her fellow gymnasts are treated horribly as they are overworked, underfed and berated for basically anything less than perfection. The girls are regularly subjected to verbal abuse, undernourishment, grueling hours of practice and are expected to perform while injured or sick. Despite all of this, they are desperate to get chosen for this life, as it is seen as dutiful way of serving their country.

Anya's parents chose to come to the frontier of Norilsk to help their country develop the natural resources in the area, mainly nickel and copper, which also polluted the air and led to compromised health. Anya's mother disappeared when she was five years old under mysterious circumstances. Her single father was eager and proud to send her off to the gymnastics world though he will come to question this aspiration. The family's neighbor Vera who served time in a Russian prison camp is also a strong force in Anya's life.

The tone of the story is dark and depressing, but that didn't deter me from wanting to read on to see what happened to the characters, and I didn't know enough about the history of gymnastics to know what actually happened at some of these events. The conclusion is mostly satisfying, except for one lingering question (no spoiler).

There is only a brief acknowledgment at the end, but I would have appreciated a more thorough author's note to explain how much of the story was fictionalized. Some gymnasts were clearly based on real figures, but I wanted to learn more about the research that went into the book.

I will recommend this to readers who like historical fiction from the 1970's time period.

Thanks to Henry Holt and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for the chance to review this book. **

Like many girls, I loved watching Women's Gymnastics during the Olympics. The sport combines elegance and grace with sheer power and determination, and it is intoxicating to watch. But, there's an underlying element to competitive gymnastics that most of us know exists--one that is far more ruthless than we would care to admit. It is against this backdrop that Rae Meadows tells her story in the book, Winterland.

Set in the USSR in the 1970s, Meadows explores the Soviet practice of state-sponsored sports schools. The main character, Anya, is only 8 years old when the book opens. Her mother, Katerina, disappeared one day, leaving Anya to be raised by her heartbroken father, Yuri. Yuri works in the copper mines of Norilsk, and money is tight. Once a leader in the local Communist party, Yuri has lost much of his influence after rumors that Katerina was turning against the party. Anya knows acceptance into the sports school is one of her only opportunities at rising above her situation, and she is elated when she gets accepted.

Brutality seeps through every aspect of Anya's life. She trains for hours upon hours a day at the sports school, often despite injuries or exhaustion. Her food is limited in order to give her an ideal gymnast's body. The cold, arctic air of Norilsk chills her bones. And, of course, Anya and the friends and family around her must be cautious of what they say in fear of the Communist Party. While Anya attacks her life with a cold hardness and determination, there is one ray of sunshine that always seems to soften her-- her old neighbor, Vera. Vera becomes Anya's mother figure, especially as her memories of Katerina begin to fade. However, Vera's story is just as brutal. She was once a prisoner sentenced to the gulags, and her stories from that dark time may have contributed to Katerina's departure. Still, Vera grounds Anya in love, even when everything around her is cold and hard.

Winterland follows Anya's journey as she rises up the ranks in the gymnastics world. There is a bit of gymnastics history thrown in as Meadows incorporates Olga Korbut, Nadia Comăneci, and other prominent USSR and Romanian gymnasts into the story. We feel Anya's pain and suffering, both physically and mentally, as she is programmed to perform for the USSR. We also feel her restlessness when it is all over.

Even though it is not a feel-good story, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Meadows lets you peek behind the glittery curtains to the harsh world of gymnastics. That is heightened by the reality of the Communist Party's brutality-- how citizens lived in fear but accepted the living conditions because they felt they were "being taken care of." It also explores uncomfortable truths about the impact a parent can have when they are not fully present in their child's life. There are a couple of story lines that remain incomplete (intentionally), so that might bother readers who like resolution. However, this is one of those stories that will stick with you long after you close the pages of the book.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I found this book to be slow, boring, and very all over the place. I enjoyed Anya's storyline of getting into gymnastics and her journey to the 1980 Olympics. I didn't even mind her dad's POV stories. Vera on the other hand felt like a completely different story to me. It always felt out of place and jarring. The flow wasn't there for me. I also was dissatisfied with the Katerina storyline. It felt half thought out to me. I didn't like that we got parts from her point of view but then still never really found out definitively what was going on. Or at least, it felt like it wasn't clear to me.
It was a lot sadder of a story than I expected. I don't dock the book any points for that, but man it was tough. I really didn't find myself able to get into the book until about halfway through. Just a bit of a miss for me.

I was originally intrigued by this book because there was a focus of gymnastics in it. However, the story contains more than that.

This book follows 3 different people: Anya, her father, and Vera. Anya is a young girl when we first meet her and the Soviet Union decides she qualifies her their gymnastics program. It continues to follow her grueling practices, trainings, and competitions in a time when winning was expected to come at any cost. Anya's father is struggling to be the father he believes Anya needs since her mother has disappeared. He believes that it is her service to serve their country in gymnastics. Vera is a neighbor and was a close confident to Anya's mother prior to disappearing. She loves visits with Anya but also tells her stories in memories from went she was in a prison camp.

Overall, the book is very interesting and shows how difficult life was in the Soviet Union.

This is a story about a Russian gymnast in the 70s. The story follows her from childhood when her talent stood out enough to get state attention to the 90s when she is well past her glory years. The author really has the ability to put you in a gym the arctic north of the 1970s Soviet Union.