Review: ‘Break the Fall’ by Jennifer Iacopelli
“A gymnast determined to push her body to its limits. Audrey Lee is going to the Olympics and nothing will stop her from winning gold. A coach accused of the unthinkable. But when a shock discovery throws the team into meltdown, nobody knows what, or who to believe. One chance to stand or fall. It’s up to Audrey to rally the team. But more important than the medal, is their determination to triumph over adversity together. And to know that after the final dismount, the greatest win is having a team ready to catch you...“
Firstly, thank you to Aus YA Bloggers for including me in this tour. Since I first heard that there was a Gymnastics novel being published I was overwhelmingly excited to get my nose into the book.
I feel the need to state that as a child I was a competitive gymnast, who at the age of 4 proudly declared they wanted to compete at the 2016 Olympics to absolutely everyone who would listen. Whilst my body had other ideas, my childhood was still shaped so largely by Gymnastics and I feel no shame in saying that it was my first love, thus my review not only includes an analysis on characterisation, plot development and writing, but also how realistic this depiction of elite gymnastics felt to a former gymnast.
On that point I have to say that this book is so incredibly accurate that I was brought back to the gym that I trained in and to all the competitions over the years. At first I was expecting to nitpick but as the book progressed it became incredibly clear that Iacopelli had either been a competitive gymnast at some point or did some thorough, thorough research. Whilst so pleased to see so many of the nuanced elements of gymnastics portrayed, including the love-hate relationship most gymnasts have with the sport, I really commend her on the way that she weaved in such positivity in the midst of some truly heart-breaking actions.
Recently gymnastics has caught people’s attention, not for the gymnastics itself, but because of the behaviour of the people in power over the gymnasts. Whilst it is clear that this book is based around many of those events, it was amazing to see hope and strength take the forefront of the narrative. At its core, this book is about empowerment, friendship and raising one another up. Furthermore, it was refreshing to see the almost the entire ensemble of characters find something positive in themselves by the end of the story.
Given that this book explores topics of emotional and physical abuse in minors, I am grateful that the villain was never given a captivating or engaging backstory. You were never encouraged to develop an emotional connection to him, but you were encouraged to feel the reverberating impacts that he had on the main characters and thus truly wish to participate in their journey as they grow and overcome the challenges left in the antagonist’s wake.
The principal character of the story if Audrey. (On a gymnastics level I related to her deeply, her favourite apparatus is bars, she “hate[s] vault” (p.132) and spends the entire story dealing with a back injury - all of which characterise my own gym career.) However, I really only found myself getting to know her about halfway through the plot. For me, it was at this point that I really started to engage in the story not just for the sport but because of the character’s relationships with one another and the decisions they were having to make which would be hard for an adult, let alone a teenager on the world stage. There were a few cliches evident as well, but by themselves they did seem believable. However, to me when juxta-positioned against the quite serious situation at the centre of the novel, these cliches had the impact of making the character’s somewhat immature. I don’t know if this was the author’s intention to highlight their age, but it did feel as though there was a disconnect somewhere along the way.
There were a couple of explicit references to minorities in the book, Audrey herself a Korean-American with other members of the Olympic team also women of colour. Whilst positive to see the author take this step I think it would have added another layer to the story that see this further explored particularly in such as unique concept.
Overall I loved this book, and that it predominately due to Iacopelli’s incredible writing and clearly thought-out plot development. This is the third book that I have read by this author and each time I am impressed with her level of research, her ability to portray an image the entire way through the novel and how much effort has gone into creating such fleshed-out characters.
Though I was half-expecting to do so, I can’t fault this book too greatly for any gymnastics inaccuracies, rather I must praise the author for managing to create a wonderful story that takes many of the issues currently in prime-time view surrounding elite gymnastics, apply them to fiction and do them incredible justice. Not just because of my own bias, this was a book where my anticipation was throughly exceeded and a story that I recommend if you are looking for a book about female empowerment, women supporting each other and an incredibly depiction of the realities of an Olympic sport.
ISBN: 9781444953244
RRP: $16.99
Publication date: 11/02/2020
Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books
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