Interesting ideas but poor storytelling

When I was 30% into this book, I set it down while I was on vacation for 6 days. Not once did I think about this book.

Winterland didn’t have a clear identity (and not in a good way). When I was 80% into the book, I was wondering where the book was going. It wasn’t plot-driven. So the suspense never increased. This book certainly wasn’t a Carrie Soto is Back.

If it was supposed to be character-driven, the author went too wide instead of deep on this one. Instead of focusing on Anya, Meadows tried to tell the story of Yuri, Irina, Vera, Katerina, Elena, and Svetlana.

Because of the number of characters, none of them were properly developed so I wasn’t invested in any of them. When you read The Hunger Games, you know why Katniss has certain friends—the author shows us moments that pass between the characters.

However, in Winterland, we don’t witness moments passing between the characters. Even though Svetlana keeps showing up in the book, I still don’t understand the friendship between her and Anya. Did Svetlana come to her rescue?

Another example: One of the characters has a relationship in the labor camp. It was described in two paragraphs. What? What was this character feeling? Did she look for the person? Did she look forward to meeting up with this person, just to feel special for a moment? Did she fear for her safety after the relationship?

The format of this book just didn’t work. It is presented chronologically with short flashbacks. Wild Swans is a book that I really enjoyed, and it was told chronologically but not in flashbacks. It went deep into the lives of three characters. Winterland, in contrast, felt disorganized, and the details were so high level that I didn’t connect with the story.

The real-life story buried under this is actually very interesting. Elena Mukhina was a gymnast representing the USSR in the late 1970’s. She has an extremely dangerous (now banned) move named after her. Very sadly, she broke her neck two weeks before the 1980 Summer Olympics while attempting The Thomas Salto.

If you aren’t already familiar with The Thomas Salto, pull up a video on YouTube, essentially the gymnast does not land on his or her feet but dives into the mat. You must land perfectly on your shoulders, or you will break your neck. The move is now banned in both men’s and women’s gymnastics.

*Thanks, NetGalley, for a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and honest opinion.

An amazing novel set in an industrial town north of the Arctic Circle in Siberia. Young Anya gets selected to enter the program to become a gymnast and we follow her path to become a competitor at the highest level. The author weaves some real-life like characters like Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci into this fascination and heartbreaking story. Highly recommended.

Winterland is a beautifully written, tragic, and unforgettable look at the grimy reality behind the Soviet Union’s utopian promises. Mainly set in the 1970s, Winterland focuses on the family of a very young gymnast and her grueling path to greatness. (You will want to You Tube the triumphs and catastrophes of her nonfictional teammates.). The multidimensional portrayal of these disillusioned visionaries, Gulag survivors, and tortured athletes will stay with you long after you reluctantly finish the novel

3.5 stars rounded up. I loved the sense of place in this book and felt like I could truly picture the village and everyday life. I also enjoyed the gymnastics portion of the story, but unfortunately found myself a little bogged down in some sections and skimming more often than I wanted. I appreciate the advance copy!

A wonderful, unusual story about a young Russian girl who makes the USSR gymnastic team. 1970's, I remember the Coldness of our country"s relationsip with the USSR and there are elements of this story that just make us remember that time in history.. Love the sport, the heart, and the determination.

Excerpt from Review:

“Winterland is a rich and powerful novel in which Rae Meadows displays her talents and her subtilty as she captures the essence of sport, the power of ambition, and the menacing hand of totalitarianism whether wielded by the state, society, or individuals.”

WIth an atmospheric blend of Russian coldness, both in nature and in society, Winterland tells the story of a young girl's gift and a country's exploitation. Perfect winter read to become engrossed in.

I truly expected to love 𝗪𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗗 by Rae Meadows both because the synopsis drew me in and because I loved the author’s 2016 book, 𝘐 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘙𝘢𝘪𝘯. Sadly, that just wasn’t the case.⁣
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Starting in the 1970s in a small, isolated town in Siberia, this book follows three storylines, all interesting…for the first half of the book. There’s 8 year old Anya who’s just been selected to begin training as an elite gymnast. Katerina, Anya’s mother, is ever present in the story because she vanished two years earlier, and no one knows why, where, how. Finally, Anya’s neighbor, Vera, who spent ten years in a labor camp and was the only survivor in her family. Vera has many secrets and knows more than we might imagine.⁣
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All that was great. It drew me in right away, but by the second half, I felt like the story just kept repeating itself. It would move forward a couple years, but the problems, the issues evolved very little. I had to do some skimming and that’s never a good sign. Clearly, for me, 𝘞𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 was a case of “you can’t win them all!”⁣
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Thanks to @henryholtbooks for an electronic ARC of #Winterland.

Our first snowfall of the season wasn’t subtle. It arrived in full force with blustery snowflakes piling up in heaping mounds on our doorstep. It was the perfect time to pick up WINTERLAND by Rae Meadows.

I was so intrigued by the setting in the USSR during the 70s and the parallels to world events today. .The story is told in dual timelines and follows young Anya and her experience with the infamous USSR gymnastics team and her mother who had disappeared years ago.

I found myself drawn to the present day timeline with gymnastics and would have enjoyed the novel more if that was the main focus. My initial investment turned cold (see what I did there?) as the storyline became a bit redundant. I was left wanting a bit more action and closure than the story offered.

RATING: 3.5/5 (rounded up to 4 stars)
PUB DATE: 11/29/22

I absolutely love it when a novel’s setting is like a character in the book - Rae Meadows description of Siberia is complex and engrossing. I felt the cold and the darkness and the harsh reality of life there in the 1970s. I loved that. While the plot was interesting, I found the relationships meaty. Although worlds away in terms of the culture in that time and in that country, I related to the love of something bigger than self and that desire to be
seen. Heartfelt thanks to Henry Holt and Co for the advanced copy.

The setting is Russia in the early 70's. Katerina, a former ballerina, disappears leaving behind her husband, Yuri, and five-year-old daughter, Anya. As Anya grows she shows an aptitude for gymnastics and is sent to a state school for training. Her father works in the copper mine in a town north of the Arctic Circle called Norilsk.

I found this a hard book to read and it took me much longer to read 288 pages than it should have. It is beautifully written. The characters are richly developed and I could sense the confusion and despair Yuri was experiencing wondering what happened to his wife, trying to raise a young girl who lives for gymnastics as he did as a young man and now working in a horrible job. Norilsk is cold, the sun sets and doesn't rise again for months and it smells of the chemicals from the copper and nickel. The bright spot is Anya who excels at gymnastics and loves the feeling that she is hollow and can fly. Her one confident is an older neighbor, Vera, who also befriended Katerina, and showed Anya the love that she was missing in her life. Her coach, Anatoly, was very hard on Anya. If she didn't excel and win she was letting Russia down. I felt her training bordered on abuse.

I don't know much about the technical aspects of gymnastics and her training is a big part of the story but I didn't feel that it took away from the overall story.

I would recommend this but with the caveat that this is not a feel good story.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Henry Holt for providing me with a digital copy.

Poor Anya! She is transplanted to northern USSR so her father can work in a mine, her mother disappears when she is 5, and the Soviets choose her to train in their gymnastics program.
This story follows this fictional Anya but includes many characters who were very real. I was fascinated by Anya’s story and went down the Google rabbit hole identifying the various athletes in the book. As a young American, I always wondered about the stories that were told about the Communist country athletes and what they must have gone through. The book alternates this story with the story of Vera, her mother’s older friend who was a prisoner in the Gulag for 10 years. This part of the story, while also heart wrenching was not as compelling as Anya’s story. However I still highly recommend this book to those who enjoy a well-told sports story or a story told during the Cold War.
Thanks to #Netgalley and #HenryHolt for access to an early copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The setting is 1970s Russia in the elite, breakneck world of women’s (or in this case girl’s) gymnastics. This is an original story and the gymnastics plot hooked me as my daughter is a gymnastics. You hear about the extreme pressures of iron curtain gymnasts and the unethical lengths the country would go to promote their own, to the point of sacrificing the health and well-being of their gymnasts. This is well-written, fascinating and hard to read at times, but we’ll worth it. I will be recommending this to library patrons and book clubs.

This is a haunting novel about the disillusionment of life and making a life when the one you get isn't necessarily the one you want or when you get the one you thought you wanted, but it isn't necessarily what you thought it would be. Young Anya's life is marked by the disappearance of her mother when she was a young child. Then, she is chosen to train for the elite Soviet gymnastics program. Although it s allegedly a great honor to be chosen to compete for the glory of her country, it is a life full of separation from her family and friends, difficult training methods, deprivation of food, and more. Eventually, she will have to come to grips with whether it is all worth it.

Since the main part of the story revolves around gymnastics, there is a lot of gymnastics terminology within the book including numerous gymnastics moves that are named but not really described. Thus, if you don't like or are not that famiiar with gymnastics you probably will not enjoy it. If you do know enough about the sport to stick with it though, it takes a fascinating albeit fictional look inside the harsh Soviet training methods, whether winning at all costs is really worth it, and whether or not you can ever truly win if you lose yourself in the process.

4.5/5

Fans of professional gymnastics need to read this incredibly heartbreaking and impactful book! I was so excited for the premise when I found this on NetGalley because sports fiction is one of my favorite genres. It had a lot gymnastics and ballet dialogue and terminology, so if you aren’t familiar, I think it could read slower/less engaging (similar to the tennis talk in Carrie Soto is Back). I loved Anya’s story mixed with flashbacks from Vera and Katerina’s experiences as women in the Soviet Union. This is a very melancholy read where you'll be feeling pain right alongside the characters. Watching Anya grow up was emotional! I wanted to give her a big hug. I really loved how this included characters based closely on real USSR gymnasts. There was only one part of the story that didn’t come full circle for me, but overall I loved it! ❤️

Read if you like:
🤸‍♀️ Gymnastics
🏆 Sports fiction
🕰 Historical fiction
💜 Found family
💪 Strong female characters

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my advanced copies in exchange for an honest review.

Winterland takes us back to the Soviet Union of the 1970's and life in Norilsk, close to Siberia and many, many miles from Moscow. It's a bleak life for 8 year old Anya. Her mother was a ballerina, but disappeared 3 years earlier, leaving Anya and her father to make their way on their own. Life is harsh there - it's very cold most of the year, there's little sunlight, and a limited variety and supply of food. The government's constant monitoring and control of their lives is even more disturbing.
But their lives change when Anya's selected to train as a gymnast and Winterland does a deep dive into the brutality of this training and life. You can clearly see the Soviet philosophy encouraging these young women to win for their country, regardless of the personal cost.
In addition to the focus on life in the Soviet Union and the gymnastics, I especially liked Anya's relationship with their elderly neighbor, Vera. Vera began life in a relatively privileged family, but through regime changes, eventually ended up in a labor camp in the 1950's with her husband and son. There's also a bit of a mystery woven through the book as we learn more about Anya's mother and her possible fate.
There are many aspects of Winterland that are difficult, but it's an interesting book about both gymnastics and the Soviet Union. Thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt and Company for the opportunity to read Winterland.

I enjoyed this book for its unique niche in my reading life. Atypical-for-me timeline and setting? Check. It takes place mostly in the 1970s in a town in the the far northern region of the USSR. New-to-me subject matter? Check. The main character, Anya, is tapped as a young child to train in the Soviet state-run gymnastics program. Much of the story is sport-focused, so insights about brutal training schedules, stratospheric expectations, injury after injury, and other peeks inside appeal to readers like me who enjoy books about athletes. But it's much more than that - her mother disappeared, her father is a cog in the wheel of the Soviet economy, such as it is, but wondering why the promises haven't played out, and her neighbor, Vera, dotes on her like a loving grandmother but harbors secrets and horrors from her past life in a work camp. These relationships and others transform it into a solid and layered work of historical fiction. I appreciate getting an e-galley of this book from NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co.

I devoured this book. The author did a terrific job of describing the life of average people living in the Soviet Union- specifically a remote town in Siberia during the early 1970s though its eventual demise. The story begins with 10 year old Anya trying out for the elite gymnastics training school. Anaya’s future of escaping their perpetually dark cold and polluted village hinges on her success at gymnastics- glorifying Russia is the greatest of honors. Her mother Katerina, has mysteriously disappeared and Anya and her father Yuri, feel her loss deeply.
Anaya is accepted into the school and it’s severe punishing training techniques. Anya takes it all in stride - she thinks of nothing but pushing herself further and harder- its all she knows. 
I won’t spoil the ending except to say that I wish the author had given the reader more of a payoff from the suffering we (along with Anya) endured . Instead we get just the barest of glimpses of how Anya experienced life outside the USSR constraints. Though perhaps taking everything in stride, is perfectly inline with her character. 
Satisfying ending.
Recommend

Winterland is a coming of age tale about a gymnast growing up outside a gulag in the frozen tundra of the Soviet Union. Although this one started out a bit slow for me, it quickly became a page turner, and I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to the characters as they attempted to rise past the Soviet political machine.
Any books set behind the iron curtain are an auto-read for me, although historical fictions fans should be warned that this book bends more literary than historical.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my complimentary copy.

This book was detailed and atmospheric. I felt like I was living in the village. The descriptions of the weather and everyday living was very convincing and makes me glad I wasn’t born there. The job of being a gymnast for the government was a scary prospect. I just thought it got bogged down a little in details and I found my mind wandering more often than I like.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest opinion.
3 ⭐️