Blog #1

I currently finished reading a book titled Breaking the Ice: My Journey to Olympic Hockey, The Ivy League, and Beyond by Angela Ruggiero. It's an autobiography of a women's hockey career that has been very successful and has included several Olympic medals. I thought this book was alright writing wise because there weren't any glaring grammar mistakes and it had plenty of voice in it, but her writing style was just sort of bland. I guess that's what you get from a hockey player trying to write a book! But I thought what made this book special was the events that happen to the main character, Angela. I think Angela is a very determined and hard working person, but I also think that she knows that hockey is not the most important thing in her life. She knows that other things such as school, friends, and family are just as necessary. This is shown when she takes a little while off and decides what she wants to continue doing. She takes her decision very seriously trying to balance her life and her dreams. In the end she does choose to follow her dreams to the Olympics, but to come back the next year and finish her education at Harvard. She also shows that she thinks education is important when she almost fails her Psychology class in college, but instead steps up and focuses solely on her education for the time being. This also demonstrates her ability to get up after a fall and try again. Furthermore, she grew up in California and that's a state with a very warm climate and not a lot of hockey. This shows her determination to succeed and her want to do anything it takes to make her a better player because hockey rinks are quite scarce in CA and you have to work really hard to even get ice time. However, even though Angela is a very interesting person, I think that she could've added a lot more to her book to make it better. I really wanted to hear more about her life at Harvard because she barely explains anything about it and it was such a huge part of her (she did spend 4 years there). I also wanted to hear more about her time as an Olympian because she really only described getting there and the Olympics are such a big deal. How could she not write more about it? However as I said, even though she is such an amazing person and an amazing hockey player, an amazing writer she is not. But I did like the book for its content and thought she has had some incredible achievements.