Tumbling

by Caela Carter

Genres: YA Social Themes; YA Contemporary; YA Coming of Age

Synopsis

For fans of Make It Or Break It, a novel about the road to Olympics for the world's most elite gymnasts.

Work harder than anyone.
Be the most talented.
Sacrifice everything.
And if you're lucky, maybe you will go to the Olympics.

Grace lives and breathes gymnastics-but no matter how hard she pushes herself, she can never be perfect enough.

Leigh, Grace's best friend, has it all: a gymnastics career, a normal high-school life... and a secret that could ruin everything.

Camille wants to please her mom, wants to please her boyfriend, and most of all, wants to walk away.

Wilhelmina was denied her Olympic dream four years ago, and she won't let anything stop her again. No matter what.

Monica is terrified. Nobody believes in her-and why should they?

By the end of the two days of the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials, some of these girls will be stars. Some will be going home with nothing. And all will have their lives changed forever.

Release date: June 7, 2016

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 432

Sample

As usual, a torrent of crippling fears ran through Leigh’s bones like bolts of lightning as she watched the red flag, stone-faced, waiting for it to turn green.
          I forget my whole routine.
          I’m going to fall on my dismount.
          I’m the Linebacker of Gymnastics: way too big to swing around these bars like a petite nothing, like Grace.
          Focus! she reprimanded herself.
          She felt like her whole life, every Leigh in every day of her past, was lined up behind her. Every missed sleepover. Every potential friend or girlfriend whom she didn’t have time for. Every lie. Every time she chose to be exceptional instead of normal. It was a series of crushing choices that shoved her up to the space where she stood right now, on the blue mat, under the uneven bars, at the Olympic trials. And it would all be pointless if she fell.
          Then the flag turned green, and the storm inside her poofed away. A smile lit up her face, and she threw her hands over her head to salute the judges before popping immediately onto the high bar.
          Her brain turned off. It was only her body on the bars. Through every giant, every release, every transition, she was That Girl. The Other Leigh. The one who was national champion. The one who could fall every day in practice but would never let the bar slip out of her grasp in a meet. The one who smiled even as she held her breath through handstands and pirouettes atop the high bar, whose toes pointed without her telling them to, whose knees would never bend, the one who would never break.
          Ninety seconds later, with a double twisting backward layout, her feet were on the mat, her hands over her head. She was That Girl again.