Gold

Gold

Chris Cleave

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  IF your dreams pull you in one direction and your heart in another, which should you follow? This is the question that haunts Kate Meadows, a world champion athlete whose eight-year-old daughter Sophie is battling a recurrence of childhood leukemia just as Kate is about to compete for her last chance at an Olympic gold medal. For years, Kate has sacrificed everything for her family and watched her best friend and closest rival, Zoe Castle, conquer the world stage. Kate has never won gold and will have to go through Zoe--who has everything to lose--to get it. Now her child is facing a life-threatening illness, and the stakes are higher than ever. How can she do what is right for her daughter without abandoning all of her dreams?

Review: Clearly I do not have the proper mindset to be an Olympic level athlete, because I could not understand or sympathize with the decisions that Kate, Zoe and even Jack made in this novel.  Having said that, it was interesting to read about what goes on behind the scenes when training for the Olympics.  The friendship between Kate and Zoe was confusing to me, since they didn't seem to have a real friendship in any way.  I found Sophie to be the most sympathetic character.

Rating: 3 stars