Kate Torgovnick

Like Pledge, which takes an inside look at sorority life, Cheer! focuses on competitive cheerleading, a strange corner of femininity I have never inhabited.
An engrossing, if alien read.
I stayed up way, way too late, reading about three cheerleading teams trying to make it to national championships. Would they make it? Would they do all their stunts flawlessly?
Some of the suspense came from how lethal a failed stunt could be. Yikes! I had no idea cheering had so much peril.

A fascinating looking inside the world of competitive college cheerleading. If you think that cheerleaders are just cute blondes who wave pom-poms on the sidelines of games, your assumptions will be both challenged and shattered by this book.

Cheer follows three teams in their pursuit of a national championship in college cheerleading. Along the way, we'll meet the coaches behind the teams and the members who make up each team. You'll see their triumphs and failures as they work toward their show more ultimate goal.

If you don't think cheerleaders are athletes, read this book. You'll come away with a new respect for what they do and the hard work it takes. show less

I love watching cheerleading, dance, gymnastic and similar synchronized routines (and was, after all, a majorette), so this book should have been up my alley. But the description of 3 very different schools' paths through competitive cheering was not too interesting. There wasn't a whole lot of drama, and I got bogged down in descriptions of moves I wasn't familiar with. This might have been better as a documentary, where the visual aspect could be better portrayed.

Like Pledge, which takes an inside look at sorority life, Cheer! focuses on competitive cheerleading, a strange corner of femininity I have never inhabited.
An engrossing, if alien read.
I stayed up way, way too late, reading about three cheerleading teams trying to make it to national championships. Would they make it? Would they do all their stunts flawlessly?
Some of the suspense came from how lethal a failed stunt could be. Yikes! I had no idea cheering had so much peril.