Girl Runner, Carrie Sneyder - Ciska's Book Chest

Author: Carrie Snyder
Publisher: Harper
Pages: 288
Format: Arc
ISBN-10: 0062336045
ISBN-13: 9780062336040
Harper: eBook | Hardcover

Aganetha Smart was part of the female running team entering the Olympics in 1928 for Canada. She competed on the woman 800 meter distance and won. Now forgotten by everyone she spends her days in a nursery home at age 104.
The arrival of two people who do not really disclose who they are at first stir up a lot of memories and slowly the story of Aganetha reveals itself. Her growing up in Ontario. About the struggle of her family. About the freedom she felt when she ran and the Olympics. About coming home and trying to settle back in normal life.

It has been 3.5 week ago that I finished this book and I still have not given it a star rating. So it will go up without and with two tags.
I am not sure I liked this book but still am left with the feeling I read something really good.
Expecting a book on the struggle of trying to get to the Olympics as a long distance runner and female I was pretty surprised that this actually is just a small part of the book.
The story starts with a small Aganetha challenging all the boys in the neighbourhood. Going trough a lot of struggle in her family where things happen that throw a shadow on the family but she does not know the details of.
Slowly the story develops where Aganetha is getting a job and a spot on a running team in the city and on to the Olympics. Slowly is a very important word here. There is not much speed though big jumps in time are made. But most of all I missed emotion. I did not connect to her struggle. I did not connect to anything in the story at all. Still I could not put the book away either. I wanted to know what would happen, what was going on in her house. Than all of a sudden I realized that the story was told in the voice of a woman of 104 contemplating on her life and I have the feeling that if I read the book again actually realizing that trough the whole story it is going to be much better. The pages I did read with that realization all of a sudden became way more interesting.