Karina Manta was born in Olympia, Washington, but she grew up in the sunshine of Chandler, Arizona. At 16 she moved to Colorado Springs to become an elite figure skater. Despite her distaste for the cold, she kept figure skating and living in Colorado, eventually competing for Team USA. She currently works as a performer for Cirque Du Soleil. She enjoys eating ice cream, engaging with creative approaches to activism, and being bisexual.
Karina’s memoir covers these experiences and much more. Attending a high school with 4,000 students, you’d expect to know more than two openly gay students, but Karina didn’t meet an out-lesbian until she was nearly seventeen–let alone any other kind of queer woman. But this isn’t just a story about her queerness. It’s also a story about her struggle with body image in a sport that prizes delicate femininity. It’s a story about panic attacks, and first crushes, and all the crushes that followed, and it’s a story about growing up, feeling different than everybody around her and then realizing that everyone else felt different too.
“Resolute and hopeful, this memoir swells with emotion. Raw, kind, and close to the heart.”–Kirkus
