Serious Dedication

A memoir. Written by a woman. About soccer. I’m surprised my local book store didn’t just automatically set it aside for me. This shit is my jam.

If you aren’t a fan of women’s soccer (and if you enjoy sports, you should check it out), you probably hadn’t heard of Carli Lloyd before last summer. She’s been playing for the US Women’s National Team since the early 2000s, but she stepped hard into the spotlight during the World Cup in Canada last year, when she scored three times in the final win over Japan, including a shot basically from mid-field.

Of the memoirs I’ve read recently that involve a co-writer, this one reads the smoothest. I don’t know Ms. Lloyd, and I haven’t seen her interviewed much, but the voice, while a bit stiff, feels genuine. The book follows her journey from player in her New Jersey hometown, through college, and into her professional career. It has much more soccer in it than Abbi Wambach’s memoir from earlier this year, and I loved that. Ms. Lloyd also discusses some of the same incidents that Ms. Wambach did, with a different perspective, which is fascinating for someone like me.

Ms. Lloyd is dedicated as hell, a hard worker, and talented. She says repeatedly she doesn’t like drama, but also says she tells it like it is, and in my experience drama and a lack of desire to choose one’s words carefully almost always go hand in hand. At the same time, I do think Ms. Lloyd is self-aware; she is open about her flaws and how they have impacted her life, especially her relationship with her immediate family (spoiler alert: it’s not a good one).

If you like sports and a bit of an underdog story, I think you’ll like this. But if you don’t enjoy sports, I think there might just be too much technical discussion for this to be a good read.