Solo, Hope Solo
Solo, Hope Solo
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Solo
A Memoir of Hope

Author: Hope Solo

Narrator: Christina Delaine

Unabridged: 20 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 02/12/2013

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

"My family doesn't do happy endings. We do sad endings or frustrating endings or no endings at all. We are hardwired to expect the next interruption or disappearance or broken promise."Hope Solo is the face of the modern female athlete. She is fearless, outspoken, and the best in the world at what she does: protecting the goal of the U.S. women's soccer team. Her outsized talent has led her to the pinnacle of her sport—the Olympics and the World Cup—and made her into an international celebrity who is just as likely to appear on ABC's Dancing with the Stars as she is on the covers of Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine, and Vogue. But her journey—which began in Richland, Washington, where she was raised by her strong-willed mother on the scorched earth of defunct nuclear testing sites—is similarly haunted by the fallout of her family history. Her father, a philanderer and con man, was convicted of embezzlement when Solo was an infant. She lost touch with him as he drifted out of prison and into homelessness. By the time they reunited, years later, in the parking lot of a grocery store, she was an All-American goalkeeper at the University of Washington and already a budding prospect for the U.S. national team. He was living in the woods.Despite harboring serious doubts even about the provenance of her father's last name (and her own), Solo embraces him as fiercely as she pursues her dreams of being a world-class soccer player. When those dreams are threatened by her standing within the national team, as when she was famously benched in the semifinals of the 2007 World Cup after four shutouts and spoke her piece publicly, we see a woman of uncompromising independence and hard-won perseverance navigate the petty backlash against her. For the first time, she tells her version of that controversial episode, and offers with it a full understanding of her hard-scrabble life.Moving, sometimes shocking, Solo is a portrait of an athlete finding redemption. This is the Hope Solo whom few have ever glimpsed.

About Hope Solo

Hope Solo, one of the most charismatic athletes in America, is widely regarded as the best women's goalkeeper in the world. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, she has been a member of the U.S. national team since 2000 and has appeared on the covers of Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine. A prominent spokeswoman for Gatorade and Nike, she starred on the hit reality show Dancing with the Stars. She lives in Seattle, Washington.Ann Killion is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle. She has covered the past ten Olympics and the last three Women's World Cups for SportsIllustrated.com and the San Jose Mercury News.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Courtney on July 26, 2016

There is much to be said about this outspoken goal keeper for the US Women’s National Team. Some people will describe her as selfish, some as too outgoing. People say she needs to keep her comments to herself. To me, she is an amazing goal keeper who says the things many people think, but are too af......more

Goodreads review by Brittany on April 16, 2013

A good deal of Hope Solo's identity is an outspoken competitor and fierce athlete. She is definitively one of the greatest living athltes (of any gender) alive today. Few people will be able to relate to more than just tiny commonalities shared with Solo's story because it is a pretty mad-whack one t......more

Goodreads review by Michael on February 08, 2018

Fun, quick read. Love these women and lov Hope, too. I've followed avidly since '99. But ya know, Hope, at the point where people continue to treat you unfairly and disrespect you and otherwise hold you back, when it keeps happpening, it's probably on you, not them. Hope uses this memoir to defend h......more

Goodreads review by Lynne on September 15, 2022

With the World Cup currently being televised, I've been reading about some of the most famous male and female soccer players. I happened to pick this up awhile ago, but somehow never got around to reviewing it. So here it goes. First, full-disclaimer, while I am a fan of Hope Solo the athlete I canno......more