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    Ebook388 pages10 minutes

    Spinning

    By Tillie Walden

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Tillie Walden's Eisner Award winning graphic memoir Spinning captures what it’s like to come of age, come out, and come to terms with leaving behind everything you used to know.

    It was the same every morning. Wake up, grab the ice skates, and head to the rink while the world was still dark.

    Weekends were spent in glitter and tights at competitions. Perform. Smile. And do it again.

    She was good. She won. And she hated it.

    For ten years, figure skating was Tillie Walden’s life. She woke before dawn for morning lessons, went straight to group practice after school, and spent weekends competing at ice rinks across the state. Skating was a central piece of her identity, her safe haven from the stress of school, bullies, and family. But as she switched schools, got into art, and fell in love with her first girlfriend, she began to question how the close-minded world of figure skating fit in with the rest of her life, and whether all the work was worth it given the reality: that she, and her friends on the team, were nowhere close to Olympic hopefuls. The more Tillie thought about it, the more Tillie realized she’d outgrown her passion—and she finally needed to find her own voice.

    This title has Common Core connections.

    A New York City Public Library Notable Best Book for Teens
    A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2017
    A 2018 YALSA Great Graphic Novel
    A 2017 Booklist Youth Editors' Choice

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateSep 12, 2017
    ISBN9781250176240
    Unavailable
    Spinning

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    Reviews for Spinning

    4/5

    215 ratings15 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Absolutely fantastic. A raw and beautiful exploration of growth.
    • 4/5
      A graphic memoir exploring the author’s teen years in the competitive world of ice skating, where she feels increasingly out of place.I’ll admit it: though I enjoy watching figure skating in the Winter Olympics, I don’t give it much thought during the off years. I know very little of synchronized skating, and only the tiniest bit more about figure skating. So, reading this was an interesting glimpse into another world. Walden does a good job of conveying her experiences to the layman. On the other hand, I found the narrative disjointed in places, and I was left with questions that never really got answered. Some of those may be because this is a memoir, and the author herself didn’t know the answers (why did her parents not come to her competitions? Why did she and her mother not get along?), but sometimes an issue was brought up and never resolved, or seemed to be resolved outside of the story somehow.Those quibbles aside, the artwork is great and the emotion heartfelt. I’d recommend this if it sounds intriguing to you.
    • 4/5
      Walden's illustrated memoir tells of several years in her childhood when she was a dedicated figure skater and synchronized skater which involved rising early to get to the rink, extensive travel to tournaments, and a discomfort with the performative femininity expected of her.  Outside of skating, Walden moves from New Jersey to Austin, TX and has to adjust to a new school, deal with a bully,  and come out as a lesbian.  It's an insightful and meditative look back on the choices made in childhood and their long lasting effects.Favorite Passages:"I'm the type of creator who is happy making a book without all the answers.  I don't need to understand my past fully in order to draw a comic about it.  And now that this is a book that other people will read, I feel like it's not really my turn to answer  that question.  It's for the reader to decide, to speculate, to guess.  It reminds me of how in English class in high school we would always talk about the author's intentions in every moment.  And I used to always wonder if there was ever an author who really didn't mean any of it, and the meaning found its way in by accident.  I think I'm that author."
    • 4/5
      I get what some other reviewers are saying about the pacing being off, but to me, the "jumping" from event to event felt true to the way that memory works and so made the wor, that much more personal an poignant. I look forward to seeing more work from Walden, be it memoir or a foray into fiction.
    • 3/5
      I found the art quite attractive in its simple, almost minimalist style. I found the story to be quite effectively told though it did lose some momentum in the middle and meander around a bit as it seemed to introduce more elements than the creator could really deal with between two covers, which is strange to say as it is a very thick and heavy graphic novel. Despite the outward appearance of the physical book it reads quite quickly as Walden uses a decompressed storytelling technique, with most pages laid out in a six-panel grid and many having of only one or three panels. And her story is compelling; I found myself going to sleep much later than intended last night so I could finish.
    • 5/5
      The art was striking and made good use of the limited palette. Walden successfully captures moments of anxiety, tenderness, and tension. It's a lovely and heartfelt read.
    • 5/5
      Beautifully drawn, and an incredibly poignant story. Loved it, and can't wait to read it again.
    • 4/5
      This is an interesting graphic novel that perfectly describes growing up and slowly losing interest in an activity that you used to love and be fully invested in. As someone who played ice hockey for many years (starting as a kid), I could absolutely relate to Tillie's experiences and feelings of growing increasingly worn out and numb to her previous enjoyment.
    • 5/5
      Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a copy of this book as a Christmas gift.Thoughts: I enjoyed this a lot, not quite as much as "On a Sunbeam" but it was an excellent memoir of Tillie's time growing up as a figure skater. The illustration is beautifully done and watching Tillie push through middle school and high school trying to figure out what she wants to do was relatable.Tillie is dealing with what a lot of teens deal with; bullies, friends, school, family. She just has the additional burden of choosing to leave something she's excellent at because she doesn't like how that activity fits in with her personality and the rest of her life. It was an engaging and incredibly easy to relate to story that I really enjoyed. This brought back a lot of memories of taking my son to ice rinks for hockey all the time and of when he made the decision to stop hockey doing so intensely and focus on other things. It also reminded me of growing up and my decision to stop playing music so intensely and focus on a science career. I feel like most people have this point in their lives where they need to step back and decide what their ability really is in an area and what would make them happy.My Summary (5/5): Overall I really loved this. The illustration is beautiful and the story is engaging and well done. I think this is a graphic novel a lot of people will read and relate to in some way. It's both a memoir of Walden's time in middle school/high school and a coming of age story. I will continue to read Walden's graphic novels as they are released; I really enjoy both her illustration and writing style.
    • 3/5
      It's kind of interesting to read a memoir from an author at a young age, but I think it works very well in this case. Walden's wonderful illustrations and specific topic of her years as a competitive ice skater are enthralling, and it gives authentic voice to a young adult audience as well.
    • 4/5
      This is not just about ice-skating: Like Bechdel's _The Secret to Super-Human Strength_ there is reflection on the emotional landscape, analysis, and connection to the larger issues in Walden's teen-age (and later) life.
    • 5/5
      graphic memoir (teen/adult). Beautifully rendered, soulful artwork relates the author's experiences growing up in New Jersey/Texas, coming out, and deciding to stop ice skating and to pursue art.
    • 4/5
      It's a little weird reading a memoir written by someone born in 1996, but it is so atmospheric...really gets at how complicated childhood can be.
    • 3/5
      A good story for someone who has been in a sport for a long time and is thinking about getting out. A little bit of reflection on the sport of figure skating, but not much. As an adult, Tillie comes across a bit bratty but from the perspective of a teenager, it's ok.
    • 4/5
      this one is a big, emotional, heavy-hitting memoir. gorgeous monochromatic palette with splashes of yellow.

      i see a lot of people saying they're not fans of her work and i'm like ??? ok ??? confused but everyone is entitled to their own opinion it's fine.

      this was super close to my own heart. i felt it. i felt her writing, her pain, her discomfort, her little victories.

      great if you are fans of this one summer by jillian and mariko tamaki. (it's even the same colour palette!)