Jennifer Rehm
Book Review
Off Balance By Dominique Moceanu with Paul and Terri Williams.
Touchstone, 2012. Genre: Autobiographies
This book is about a girl name Dominique, She had very little money as a kid and her parents didn’t always get along, her dad was very strict towards her. At a young age Dominique found a love for gymnastics so her parents signed her up for lessons. What they thought was a just a hobby, soon would become her life. Doing gymnastics 45 hours a week at a young age soon was all Dominique new. This story goes through her life as a competitive gymnasts. She talks about her struggles with her coaches and all the pressure they put on her to never make a mistake. She said how they would get mad if she fell of beam during warm ups or didn’t do something they liked, she mentions how when she was at the olympics her dream was turning into a nightmare because she was scared if she did mess up and what her coaches and even her parents would say. To make her life even more stressful she finds out she has a sister she never met. She was angry with her parents because they told her 20 years later. Her parents tell her why they gave her up for adoption. Her sister’s name was Jennifer, she was born without legs and her parents couldn’t afford to take her to treatment or support her disability so they sent her to a family that would be able to provide that kind of service to Jennifer. But what confuses Dominique about this whole situation is she would have been 6 years when she was born and doesn’t remember her mom being pregnant or even a single mention about her.
“A rousing, intimate memoir” The Vouge.com said about their review of Off Balance.
I have read a lot of autobiographies in the past few years and Off Balance is one of the ones that stuck out to me the most. The way Dominiques life is described in the book will make you be hooked to it. You will laugh and maybe even cry with the emotion that is on every page, you will feel as if you are part of the story.
I can sort of relate to the topic in this book. Dominique has to balance life as a gymnast along with her school work and family/friends. For me as a dancer sometimes I don’t have enough time for it all. So I have to plan everything out in advance depending on my schedule that week.
