so good :) such a good book about her and life in general ( )

so good :) such a good book about her and life in general ( )

I received this book free. As an Auto-Biography it was okay although I stopped reading it for a while as another book looked more interesting. As a Christian Auto-Biography it fell short.

Shawn Johnson describes her early childhood and experiences leading up to her winning Gold and Silver medals at the Beijing Olympic Games. A lot of the book was about her training as a gymnast which I didn't relate to but I'm sure would be of interest to other gymnasts. I liked her honesty and descriptions of her personal struggles although I felt in places that she revealed too much detail (e.g a romantic relationship with a man that broke up with his girlfriend for her) that she will wish she had kept to herself later in life. I felt sorry for her as she describes her terror on learning that she had a stalker who had been on his way to abduct her during her training for a dance competition. Also as she describes her struggles with a serious knee injury later in the book.

There are many of these "Christian" Auto-Biographies that read more like "self help" manuals for how to navigate life with the most positive attitude you can muster. God seems to then be tagged onto the end as an afterthought. There are Bible verses and secular "self-help" quotations intermingled throughout the book. After winning her Gold medal and a dance competition Shawn realises that there is more to life than winning competitions, she feels an emptiness in her life and almost turns to God to fill it, almost but not quite....it was frustrating reading at this point as I was expecting her salvation testimony especially when the chapter was entitled "How God became more real to me," but she always seems to weather the storm and then continue as before...

At the end of every chapter the author details a "Lesson I've Learned" and one of the final lessons is this;

"Don't let anything hold you back from following your heart and taking a leap of faith. Even if you're the only one who believes in the direction you want to take, you have the power to make it happen."

Most of her "life lessons" are like this and sadly they are just not Biblical. The Bible teaches that we should not follow our hearts as they are deceitful, that we should instead follow the Bible. Also that we should follow God's direction rather than our own and that we have no power apart from in Him!

Shawn is clearly a sincere young woman seeking to live a moral life and believing that God is helping her. She mentions prayer at various points. It is my hope that she will come to a personal saving faith in Jesus. The book is clean and free of bad language, violence and sexual content. If you are interested in gymnastics/Shawn Johnson you may enjoy this but I don't think it will inspire Christian readers. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. Being from Iowa, I followed Shawn's path to the Olympics and watched her while she competed. You kind of have an idea of what goes into being a top athlete but you really don't know until you hear it from one of the athletes. Gymnastics is so hard on the body and then for them to work that hard at such a young age is horrible. Sounds like Shawn's Iowa upbringing has kept her balanced and she's on the right track to succeed outside of gymnastics. ( )

"Wining Balance" by Shawn Johnson is an amazing autobiography to read. I've always admired Shawn and was interested about her journey to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. When you read this book, you will learn so much about her and a lot of struggles in her life to get to where she is now. This is a great book for Shawn's fans. ( )