I will start by saying that I am Ukrainian with professional gymanst in the family and lived in the northern part of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, so I was reading this book applying my personal experience to it.
I loved the plot, three different stories that were not connected but worked together wonderfully. The character build was terrific; if you like coming-of-age stories, this will be perfect. It is very traumatic, not only do we follow young Anya who goes through mental and physical traumas in order to get to greatness, but we also follow Vera and her memories of the labor camp for political prisoners. In addition to it, we have Anya's mom, who disappeared after discussing her disagreement and criticism of the Soviet State. The quality of the book is a 5-star rating for me, however, I have to point out a few harmful things.

First, Latynina is Ukrainian. She was born and trained in Soviet Ukraine and nowhere in the book is this mentioned. The Soviet Union does not equal Russian, and the author pointed out one of the gymanst to be from Tajikistan, why not do the same for everyone else who is not from Soviet Russia?
Second, the Ukrainian national dish borscht was mentioned twice and none of these times it was acknowledged that it is Ukrainian. Yes, Russians eat and cook it as well; however with current war events and Russia continuously erasing and stealing Ukrainian history and culture this step felt like a disrespect at a minimum.
Easter traditions were discussed between Vera and Anya, this is definitely not the norm for the times and an atheist family living in the northern city. Yes, it was celebrated but very quietly and under the blanket, because it was too religious for the Soviets.

Overall, this is a great read that I will definitely recommend to others. I hope that author and her editorial team can take this criticism into consideration and add the necessary acknowledgment in future editions and in-person events.

Thank you, NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for the gifted early review copy.

In 1973 in Norilsk, Siberia, a copper mining outpost north of the Arctic Circle, eight-year-old gymnast Anya is chosen to attend the state sports school.

Told in alternating chapters, this book seamlessly weaves together four stories. As Anya rises through competitive gymnastics, she learns that the Soviet Union has control over her life, and she is only valuable when she can perform. Yuri, Anya's father, moved his new wife to desolate Norilsk with dreams of doing his part for the Communist Party. As he ages, he sees no future for him and is becoming disillusioned with the Soviet way of life. Vera, Anya and Yuri's neighbor, spent ten years in the Gulag for a minor offense. For her own reasons, she has chosen to remain in Norilsk after her release from prison. Katerina, Anya's mother, disappeared when Anya was three years old. The mystery surrounding her disappearance runs through the novel.

This book is fascinating. I could not put it down. If you like well-written character-driven historical fiction, this book is for you.

Thank you, Henry Holt and Company and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book.

Thank you Netgalley and Henry Holt & Co. for providing me with an advance copy of this book.

Anya is a young girl of 8 living in Siberia when this book begins. Her mother, a former prima ballerina, mysteriously disappeared when Anya was 5. Anya has been tapped to train as a gymnast for the Soviet Union. This story follows Anya’s fascinating and grueling journey to become an elite gymnast in a system that churned out top athletes at any cost. It is also a story of Vera, haunted by her years in a Soviet prison camp, and Yuri, Anya’s father, struggling to raise his daughter alone and grieving the loss of his wife.

I appreciated how rich this story was. The main storyline is Anya’s and her journey to become a top gymnast, and her coming of age. It is also about the Soviet Union and its people during those years leading up to the dissolution of the USSR – their heart, their hardships, and their philosophical struggles as they grapple with what they have been taught, versus the realities of the lives they lead. The cold and desolation of Siberia is depicted viscerally, and the Siberian people as weary but tough, fiercely loyal and proud.

I loved this book. Admittedly, I am very much the target audience as I am a fan of gymnastics, and remember the era that the book is set in. I have also always been fascinated by the Soviet and Chinese athletic institutions. This book is inspiring, sad, heartwarming, and beautiful. This was a book I couldn’t wait to get back to reading to find out what was happening in Anya’s world.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book follows Anya who lives with her father in Siberia, enduring cold, endless nights, and harsh conditions. At the age of 8, Anya is selected to train as a gymnast in an elite state run program. Her love of gymnastics slowly changes to a need to become bigger and better than her competitors. Although she suffers injury, she works through the pain, muscle aches and pushes her body to the breaking point.

I enjoyed reading this book. I've never read anything about the soviet gymnastics program and thought it was fascinating. I felt for the girls, who had to sacrifice their health for the state as they pushed to constantly do more and more. The book had a sad, nostalgic feel to it, permeated by the secondary characters sadness and struggles. Overall, 4 out of 5 stars.

What a beautiful novel! If you grew up loving gymnastics, you will love this book. The author takes us to Russia, to the 1970's, where we follow young Anya's life as she gets chosen to train as a gymnast at a young age. Most of the novel follows her from age 12-14. We also hear about her missing mother's life as a ballerina for the Bolshoi and her beloved neighbor Vera's life, who survived the Arctic camps many Russians were sent to during the USSR era. Vera's stories were so sad, and added the historical fiction element I sometimes don't like. I did prefer when we followed Anya's story. I didn't always like the way the story unfolded, but I loved following Anya. The ending was a little too abrupt. I wanted more, I wanted to know what happened next for Anya. But it will be novel I will think about for a long time.

In the early seventies, in the Arctic mining town of Norilsk, Russia.. a young eight year old girl, Anya, is deemed an “asset to the Soviet Union” by her gymnastic abilities.
Anya’s parents had arrived in this town as a group of young people with Communist ideals… since then her mother has disappeared, her father is not healthy from the chemicals at work.
This story was riveting to me.. the intense and quite brutal training the girls went through in training..the way the Russians had to live, the other story in the book .. of their neighbor’s years spent with her husband and son in the Gulag labor camps.

I love Rae Meadows writing.. this was s wonderful read, just like her previous book that I loved, I Will Send Rain.
https://goodreads.com/book/show/28514471.I_Will_Send_Rain

Thank you to Netgalley and Henry Holt & Company for the ARC!

Set in 1970 and super-high-stress environment of the Soviet era, this fast-paced story about a young girl determined to be a State’s Athlete(a gymnast) really held my interest. I love the cold, cold weather & the even harsher coaches.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for my copy of Winterland by Rae Meadows in exchange for an honest review. It publishes November 29, 2022.
This was such an interesting premise, I've never come across anything like it. I found it to be super interesting and informative, and now my YouTube algorithm is showing me all sorts of gymnastic clips since I searched for videos about everyone mentioned it this book! I did not want to put this book down and lost quite a bit of sleep over needing to finish it faster, to find out what was going to happen.
There were a couple things that I did not enjoy about the writing and formatting that I personally did not like. One was that a lot off Russian words were used in italics, which is typical, however, not all the words were explained, so it wasn't a vocabulary word, so much as a guessing game, or if it made the sentence confusing, I had to stop reading to look up what the word meant. The other thing that was confusing was that it jumped back and forth between many different characters and perspectives, that I would need to reread paragraphs to understand who it was about. If there was a way to say the character's name and year, it would make the reading itself much smoother.
Lastly, I need to mention sensitivities: As you can assume with it being Soviet gymnastics, the girls are not treated well, there is an instance of molestation, but it doesn't last very long. Also, a lot of implied sexual abuse, and abuse from coaches throughout.

I was very excited about this book as a huge gymnastics fan and former gymnast. I knew a little about USSR and what went in but not a lot. I felt like this was well researched and a topic not touched on much, however it was very slow moving and hard for me to get into.

Rae Meadows allows you to feel the Arctic cold, but this novel is not just chilling because the setting is mostly in Siberia. She portrays the story of young gymnasts whose lives are not their own as they compete for the Soviet Union. A chilling portrayal for sure, as we witness not just rigorous training , but the cruelty of having to “put aside the pain”, taking shots to numb the pain , being forced to compete while ill, being forced to compete when your bones are not yet healed. All for the glory of the state. It’s also chilling to learn about Vera, the sweet and caring lady who befriends Anya as she did Anya’s mother Katerina . With strength and courage and the will to live, Vera survives the camps, the gulags of the 1950’s having endured unimaginable losses. It’s chilling to see the toll that working in the copper mines has on Anya’s father with his belief he is doing the right thing for the good of the state. It’s chilling as the reader wonders throughout what happened to Anya’s mother, a former Bolshoi Ballerina.

This is a beautifully written novel reflecting the Soviet Union in the 70’s and by flashback to the Gulags, told through the lives of characters who will stay with me. Such an amazing depiction of time and place . Lovely little Anya, who loves gymnastics, Elena based on a real gymnast Elena Mukhina and her devastatingly sad story. Vera and Katerina who we know through the other characters. Rae Meadows is such a talented writer. I loved [book:I Will Send Rain|28514471] about a different place and time, also so well done. Both novels are filled with heartbreak and loss, but also the strength of the human spirit in face of adversity. It’s also a stunning expose of the sport and is eerily relevant today. This will definitely be on my list of favorites for the year.

I read this with Diane. We had a couple of glitches, technical and otherwise that slowed our discussion , but always a pleasure to read together.

I received a copy of the book from Henry Holt and Co. through NetGalley.

Set in Norilsk, Russia, a city that is 300 kilometers or 186 or so miles from the Arctic Circle, and slightly less than 1,500 miles from the North Pole, Norilsk is a ‘closed city’ in Krasnoyarsk Krai, a city where residents and visitors were faced with government restrictions on travel, including searches.

Anya, who is eight years old as this story begins, lives in Norilsk with her father, Yuri. Her mother has been gone for three years by then, although Anya’s father does not know where Katerina has gone, or even if she is still alive. Anya’s memories of her mother have faded for the most part since she disappeared, and her father hasn’t spoken much about her in the years that followed her disappearance. Rumours followed, with those choosing to believe that as a Bolshoi ballerina she may have abandoned her life in Russia, and others believing she has simply abandoned her family, perhaps for a different life.

As a still young girl, Anya has been deemed to have potential in the eyes of the Soviet Union as a gymnast, and begins her training with Anatoly Popov. It is often a grueling journey, filled with pain and emotionally draining for her, and she endures far too much pain, emotionally and physically, especially for her age. As time passes, the expectations Popov has for her grow even more, and Popov frequently lashes out at her, accusing her of being lazy or worse.

A neighbor in her building, Vera, offers her comfort and shares some memories of Anya’s mother, as well as encouraging Anya in her belief in Anya’s talent. When Anya isn’t there, her thoughts tend to return to those darker memories of her years in one of the Siberian labor camps, where her husband and son also went, but never returned.

While the training grows more grueling as Anya grows older, there are moments of beauty in this story, as well. A story of love, a story of the pain of loss, as well as some bittersweet moments of reconnecting with those whom she loved many years before. This is also somewhat of an exposé of how brutal the training can be, the toll it takes on a young girl's body, as well as the mishandling, exploitation and physical abuse of these young girls.

Still, there are touching moments, as well as moments of beauty. While the characters are mostly fictional, several gymnasts of the era enter the story, including Olga Korbut, adding an authentic air to the story.

For me, it is the sense of longing that permeates this story, a palpable, tangible essence that is felt which brings this story to life. A laying bare of the harmful, persistent need for perfection. A missing woman - a wife, a mother who has vanished and the toll it takes on those who loved her. A longing of a daughter for her mother, a woman who wanders into her thoughts like a ghost to her, unseen, always just out of reach while still knowing she is a part of her. A longing for a new way of life, for old friends, a longing to move on, move away, to distance oneself from so many memories, so much pain.



Pub Date: 29 Nov 2022

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Henry Holt & Company

Winterland is an absolute masterpiece. The story follows the rise of Anya from a Siberian sports school to the national gymnastics team in 70's Soviet Russia. The incredible cast of characters represent a wide range of experiences in Soviet Russia: Vera, an elderly gulag survivor; Yuri, a member of the Party questioning his ideals; Anya, a young girl trying to fulfill her duty to her country, no matter the personal cost.

Meadows paints a vivid picture of the era, sometimes in the most heartbreaking way.

Gymnastics fans will be delighted by appearances from the likes of Olga Korbut, Shaposhnikova, Nadia Comenici, and Nellie Kim. The references riddled throughout brought a lighthearted reprieve to a heavy story. My personal favorite was a reference to Nellie Kim trying to rename skills in the Code of Points after herself.

Meadows has clearly done her research, and the issues and abuses within the sport (many of which remain relevant today) are addressed clearly. Life in the Soviet Union is represented well. She does not mince words, and parts of the story were hard to read, but they were a historic reality.

Winterland was gorgeous, and I could not put it down.

Thanks to Henry Holt and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to publication. I heard about this book on a podcast episode that recommended books to watch this fall and winter. When I heard there was a book about gymnastics coming out in November, I was so grateful to discover it on Netgalley! I grew up a huge fan of Nadia Comeneci and other gymnasts at around the same era and after - my friends and I used to pretend we were those gymnasts. Many of the characters in Meadows' book were famous Russian gymnasts, and the author takes us deep into Russian gymnastics philosophy and coaching midst a harsh political and social background. We follow main character Anya as she is chosen to be a Russian gymnast at a young age, as well as her family and neighbors, with the story spanning decades forward and back as each character's backstory informs the present. It's a bleak book, and everything is not tied up nicely as we see the impact of communism. I appreciated the deep dive into Russian gymnastics and the greater political surroundings of the time, but I felt the pacing dragged in places. The author's in-depth research really shows, and I am glad I read it.

This book is staggering. Full of emotions that range the gamut from despair and disillusionment to hope and contentment. It is, at times, painful to read, though other passages brought a smile to my lips, however brief. The setting is Soviet Russia, after all, so pleasures are short-lived.

In 1973, Anya is an eight year old girl growing up in a bleak Siberian town with her father, when she is selected to attend a local chapter of the state-run gymnastics school. Her new coach, Anatoly, takes a special interest in her abilities and pushes her to excel past her provincial teammates. At age fifteen, Anya is training as hard as she can to be chosen as a Soviet gymnast in the Olympics, but she quickly starts to wonder at the purpose of it all.

Anya's mother Katerina, once a ballerina for the Bolshoi, left the house for work one day and never returned. Her father, Yuri, has been plagued by doubt and regret ever since. Their elderly neighbor Vera spent ten years in a work camp, enduring the premature deaths of her loved ones, but she makes space in her heart for both Katerina and Anya. These three different perspectives, combined with Anya's, give us insight into what living in Soviet Russia could have been like — what is impossible, what is endured, what is concealed, what is allowed, and what one must sacrifice to comply.

I think the way this story is written is magical. I'm not a writer, so I don't know how they do it, but the prose truly transports you, decades and worlds away, so that you can almost feel the cold and the bitter hollowness. Rae Meadows smashed this one out of the park in my opinion, as the characters are all compelling and the story of Anya brought tears to my eyes. I highly recommend googling some videos of Olga Korbut, Ludmilla Tourischeva, Elena Mukhina, and the other young gymnasts mentioned in this narrative, so you can get a better feel for exactly what they were doing day in, day out. It is spectacular and horrible when combined with the anecdotes in the book.

Thank you to Rae Meadows, Henry Holt and Co., and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

Winterland knocked my socks off. It was almost impossible to put down and I stayed up until 3 am last night in order to finish it.

The novel is about Anya, a gifted gymnast in Siberian Russia who is chosen to represent the Soviet Regime. From the age of six, she is chosen and is under the control of her coach, Anatoly. Anatoly cares about training Anya to win for the Soviets and has little regard for her as a human being. The narrative takes us from Anya's early childhood to her adult years.

Anya is from Norilsk, a city north of the Arctic Circle where temperatures reach -40 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, and darkness prevails except for the short interval of summer. It is known for the mining of nickel and for the prisoner camp that once was situated there. Anya lives with her father Yuri. Her mother, Katarina, disappeared when Anya was very young. Once a promising ballerina with the Bolshoi, Katarina left her home one day and never returned. No one is sure of her fate. Anya misses her dearly and envisions her coming home one day.

This novel is heavy with propaganda about the Soviet Regime, the communist party, and its philosophy. Individualism is frowned upon and voicing an opinion that does not support the state's, is likely to get you imprisoned in the Gulag for ten years. Anyone can turn you in for a real or imagined digression. It reminded me of Ayn Rand's novel, 'We the Living'. Anya's parents and a group of their friends traveled to Norilsk from Moscow in their young adulthood, filled with idealism for the communist regime. Most of them have lost faith in communism but Anya's father, Yuri, is still a believer.

It was very painful to watch the way that young gymnasts were treated and what they had to endure. Anya severely hurt her ankle when she was about 10 years old and it was never allowed to heal properly. Injections into her ankle that numbed it allowed her to continuer with her practicing but her ankle never healed properly. This was common practice. The doctors were beholden to the State and the only goal was 'Gold' at the olympics.

Anya practices from morning until night six days a week. She loves to visit Vera, a neighbor in her apartment building who spent ten years in a labor camp and once was a confidante of Katarina's. Vera tells Anya about Katarina and gives her chocolate which is forbidden by Anatoly. In fact, Anya is hungry most of the time because the State wants her to remain thin and childlike, without breasts, hips, and never menstruating.

Anya is devoted to gymnastics. It is her heart and soul. She strives to be the best and dreams of winning gold in the olympics. She ignores her pain, her exhaustion, and will repeat a move until she can barely stand up. She is alone except for her father, her father's girlfriend, and Vera. One day, however, she meets Elena, another promising gymnast, who becomes her best and closest friend.

There is a lot going on in this novel and the narrative is told from different perspectives and from different time periods. This technique works wonderfully as the author has a close grip on her character's lives. The characterizations are superb. Each person comes alive for the reader and there is no character who isn't fully developed. My only critique is of the ending which I felt was tacked on. Otherwise, this book is a marvel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt publishers for providing me with an Advanced Review Copy.

Slow at times, but very well written and character driven. I liked learning more about Katerina and her disappearance, Vera's life in the gulag and after, Anya and Soviet gymnastics. It was interesting to mix in real gymnasts too, but I have some mixed feelings about including Elena and her accident...it would have obviously had a huge impact on the other gymnasts too, but it felt a bit uncomfortable too. I loved I Will Send Rain and really enjoyed Winterland, so I'll be excited to read whatever Meadows writes next.

Some formatting feedback:
- On the first page, it says "now it here it was"
- I believe there is a period missing after the word "podstakanniki" in chapter 3
- In chapter 17, "walk on her" looked like it was starting a new paragraph, but was finishing the sentence in the previous paragraph

Rounded to 4.5 stars.

CONTENT WARNING: mention of death, mention of death of a child, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, fat shaming, blood, alcoholism, rape, drug use, molestation

I’m old enough that I remember growing up when the Soviet Union still existed. When the Olympics were dominated by their gymnasts, and as a little girl, I would sit glued to the television and watch these girls perform incredible feats. But I had no idea what actually went into the making of these gymnasts, and I was way too young to really understand the politics of the times.

This book provided a lot of insight into the inner workings of the Soviet Union, not at the political level, but at the individual levels. And I think what made this book more powerful was that it wasn’t just told from Anya’s POV, but from the people who are most important to her—her father and her neighbor Vera, who serves as a surrogate grandmother.

They all live in Norilsk, Siberia. Vera chose to stay there after being released from a Gulag, but Anya’s parents chose to move there as devout participants in the Communist Party. However, once Anya’s mother left the Bolshoi Ballet, she struggled with what seemed to be depression and disillusionment with Party ideals, even as her husband stubbornly clings to his own idealism. Vera is older, and as someone who lived through the Revolution, she has her own sense of religious faith, which isn’t encouraged or even really allowed under Communism.

Anya herself is young when the book starts, but is already wise to how her world works. Speaking about certain things has a cost, which can be severe. Saying things against the Party can get parents or children passed over for opportunities at the least, or sent to Gulags and killed in worst case scenarios. Anya learns this first-hand when she receives a spot in the gymnastics training program over a peer who is equally if not more qualified.

But what she quickly learns is that the Soviet Union has control over every single aspect of her life. And that she’s just a tiny cog in a machine that doesn’t especially value her outside of what she can bring to the table. Once she stops being able to perform, she is no longer valuable to her country. She sees it happen to others, and knows that is just the way things work.

Reading this book felt claustrophobic at times. When reading the parts set in Norilsk, I tried to picture what it would be like to actually live in a place where the sun doesn’t shine at all for several months of the year, and negative temperatures prevail for much of the time, along with the pollution that resulted from the mining supporting the town. Combined with the fears of anyone being able to speak out against you and get you sent to a Gulag, and having to look over your shoulder, it all felt so oppressive. Even as Anya rose higher through the ranks of competitive gymnastics, it always felt like the other shoe was about to drop at any time.

Overall, this story was absolutely fascinating. The way that the author wove the three narratives together with flashbacks of what happened to Anya’s mother, and did so beautifully. Even though it wasn’t an easy story to read, I found myself unable to put the book down. It was fascinating to get inside the mindset of a champion gymnast, seeing how they are able to tune out everything going on to focus single-mindedly on a goal, dedicating all of their physical and mental energy towards reaching that goal. In addition, we also get to see people come to terms with their own faith and what happens when that is challenged—whether that is faith in religion, communism, their body, family, or something else entirely.

They were idealistic young people who volunteered to move north of the Arctic Circle to mine copper, for the country, for the people, believing themselves “the true builders of Communism.” Yuri, and his wife Katerina who left behind a career with the Bolshoi Ballet, their friends Irina and Vitka the poet.

Vitka was denounced and rehabilitated. Katherina disappeared. Yuri’s health was breaking down from exposure to chemicals at his job. Their daughter Anya had her mother’s grace, drive, and facility and is chosen to study gymnastics, to train for the Olympics.

Yuri believed in the Communist dream of equality, the importance of his work. But all around them were people who had survived their internment in the camps and stayed on. They had been imprisoned by Stalin for owning too many cattle and horses, for being landowners, for “murky political charges,” for writing poetry that “promoted the cult of the individual” of which Vitka was accused. Anya’s neighbor Vera was one of these survivors, her husband and son starved or murdered in the camps. She remains for them, and out of the guilt of what it took to survive. Vera told her story to Katerina, causing her questioning of the political system she had believed in. The forbidden poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva also set in motion Katerina’s questioning. Why was there no room for art and love in Communism?

Anya saw gymnastics as her way out of Norilag. She loved the challenge. It was an honor to be chosen to train for the Olympics, to bring glory to one’s country. Her role model was Olga Korbut. Anya’s life would be controlled by her trainer until she was eighteen, when she moved on to a state job,

The story of Anya’s training is brutal, for the girl has no value unless she can do the impossible, and win. When she is hurt, she is given injections and forced to continue training before she heals. The coaches are tyrants, determining how long the girls train, what they eat. what they will do. Anya is stubborn. She does the impossible. She is on her way to the Olympics. She meets an older gymnast, Elena, and they develop a deep love. Anya finds her mother’s forbidden copies of poems and shares them with Elena. After an injury, Elena is pushed too far and a failure results in tragedy.

Anya’s story is an emotional read. Vera and Yuri and Katerina’s stories give depth and insight into Soviet history. Theirs is a story of Idealism meeting cruel reality, patriotism questioned, learning one’s country does not care about the individual, learning how evil flourished.

Meadows manages to describe the world and training of gymnastics in a way that holds the reader’s interest, drawing from her own love of 1970s Soviet Olympic contenders in gymnastics and her own experience and training.

At it’s root, the character’s suffering stems from the state. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Anya and Yuri, poisoned by copper, immigrated to America, living with other homesick Russians in Brooklyn, sharing a nostalgia for what no longer existed, and perhaps never did.

We knew a Russian exchange student who was in America while during the collapse. Yuri had high hopes for the future, believing that his country could reinvent itself. He was excited to return home. I often wonder what happened when he returned to a country in disarray.

Patriotism can drive one to do illogical things. Katerina once danced for Stalin, but follows Yuri into a brutal wilderness. Yuri’s health is ruined without protection against the copper. The gymnasts’ mental and physical well being are ignored in the quest for Olympic glory to prove the state’s superiority. They try to ignore the legacy of the camps.

It’s a warning to us all.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

A really great book. I am a huge gymnastics fan, and I really enjoyed this glimpse into USSR gymnastics culture.