Thank you, NetGalley and Random House for allowing me to read this book early. The opinion in this review is my own.

A women’s cross country team and the struggle the teammates have to go through to succeed. This is a coming-of-age story which talks strongly about how difficult it is for women to overcome their personal obstacles as well as physical ones in women’s sports. It has many conversations about how teammates can become lifelong friends.

This is told in multiple POVs and many of the voices felt the same. Unless it specifically said whose POV we were reading from it took a lot of mental energy trying to figure it out. That aspect took a lot away from the story. I wasn’t able to just sit back and read. The book also kept alluding to something that happened to Kristin “last summer,” but it felt kind of obvious and this storyline was dragged out a bit much.
The writing was okay, but a bit sloppy at times. The characters had some depth, but it depended on which POV you were reading from. I liked this book okay and I would like to see where this author goes in the future.

I was interested in reading this as a former cross country runner. Unfortunately the book felt sloppy switching between sometimes named, sometimes unnamed narrators.

Thank you for this ARC! I am a runner and was excited to see this book. However, the changing narrators made it difficult for me to fully emerge in the story. I found it hard to keep track of characters and distinguish between their voices.

I wanted to like "We Loved to Run" more than I did. It was a good story, but I was expecting something a little different than what I got. However, the author does a good job of portraying the pressures and expectations, as well as the joys, of cross country, including the extra pressure on female runners to have and maintain a certain body type. The characters were engaging and a good mix of personalities.

Set at a small liberal arts college in 1992; the story follows six driven young women chasing athletic glory. What starts as a narrative about a team pushing toward a championship slowly unfolds into a raw and nuanced exploration of identity, secrecy, and solidarity.

Told in alternating perspectives, each voice in the novel rings clear and true, giving readers a deeply personal look at the inner lives of girls shaped by ambition, trauma, and a longing for control. Kristin, the team’s prodigy, is unraveling under the weight of an unnamed summer event, while Captain Danielle is haunted by her own buried past. Their entangled paths are full of conflict and care, and Stephanie Reents truly shines in these quiet moments of confrontation and connection.

This is a novel that understands how young women weaponize and wield discipline—not just in sports but in eating, silence, and perfection. It also understands how fierce competition can give way to fierce loyalty in the crucible of shared struggle. Reents writes with a rare mix of empathy and edge, never flinching from the pain her characters endure yet always illuminating the fragile strength that keeps them running—literally and emotionally.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this novel about running and coming of age in the 1990’s. A shared POV doesn’t always work for me but I thought this one was really well done - each young woman felt distinct and the collective voice was done well too. This reminded me (in a great way) of the recent book Headshot, so I’d recommend it to fans of that book.