Forward: My Story Young Readers' Edition
Written by Abby Wambach
Narrated by Allyson Ryan
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Abby Wambach has always pushed the limits of what is possible. Named by Time magazine as one of the most influential people of 2015, the iconic soccer player captured the nation’s heart when she led her team to its recent World Cup Championship. Admired for her fearlessness and passion, Abby is a vocal advocate for women’s rights and equal opportunity, pushing to translate the success of her team to the real world. She has become a heavily requested speaker to a wide a range of audiences, from college students to executives at Fortune 500 companies.
In this edition of Forward that’s been adapted for young readers, Abby recounts her own decisions, wins, losses, and the pivotal moments that helped her become the world class athlete and leader she is today. Wambach’s book goes beyond the soccer field to reveal a soulful person grappling with universal questions about how we can live our best lives and become our truest selves. Written with honesty and heart, Forward is an inspiring blueprint for individual growth and a rousing call to action.
Abby Wambach
ABBY WAMBACH is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA World Cup Champion, and the highest all-time international goal scorer for male and female soccer players. She is an activist for equality and inclusion and the New York Times bestselling author of Forward: A Memoir. Abby is co-founder of Wolfpack Endeavor, which is revolutionizing leadership development for women in the workplace and beyond through her champion mindset, individualized coaching, and team-bound focus. Abby lives in Florida with her wife and children.
Related to Forward
Related audiobooks
I Got This: To Gold and Beyond Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Forward: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grace, Gold, and Glory: My Leap of Faith Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Other Home: Living, Leading, and Learning What Matters Most Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnstoppable: My Life So Far Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Through My Eyes: A Quarterback's Journey: Young Reader's Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life is Magic: My Inspiring Journey from Tragedy to Self-Discovery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Playbook: 52 Rules to Aim, Shoot, and Score in This Game Called Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seeing Serena Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wolfpack (Young Readers Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Serena Williams: Athletes Who Made a Difference Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Zero Regrets: Be Greater Than Yesterday Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFinish Strong Teen Athlete: A Guide for Developing the Champion Within Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Serena vs. Venus: How a Photograph Spotlighted the Fight for Equality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Body Lengths Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Whatever...Love Is Love: Questioning the Labels We Give Ourselves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If at Birth You Don't Succeed: My Adventures with Disaster and Destiny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alone in Wonderland Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Kid Authors: True Tales of Childhood from Famous Writers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5To Siri with Love: A Mother, her Autistic Son, and the Kindness of Machines Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lara The Runaway Cat: One cat’s journey to discover home is where the heart is Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Water They Can't See You Cry: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Kid Athletes: True Tales of Childhood from Sports Legends Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things I Learned from Falling: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As Fast As Her: Dream Big, Break Barriers, Achieve Success Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Absolutely Almost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solo: A Memoir of Hope Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Keeper: A Life of Saving Goals and Achieving Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fast Girl: A Life Spent Running from Madness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Children's Biography & Autobiography For You
Free Lunch Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Harriet Tubman Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hitler's Last Days: The Death of the Nazi Regime and the World's Most Notorious Dictator Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Henry's Freedom Box Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hidden Figures Young Readers' Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boy on the Wooden Box Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Days of Jesus: His Life and Times Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dreamer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Selma: True Stories of a Southern Childhood at the Height of the Civil Rights Movement Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Am Ruby Bridges Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellow Star Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge: George and Martha Washington's Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Out of Hiding: A Holocaust Survivor’s Journey to America (With a Foreword by Alan Gratz) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shaken: Young Readers Edition: Fighting to Stand Strong No Matter What Comes Your Way Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lincoln's Last Days: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Escape from Alcatraz: The Mystery of the Three Men Who Escaped From The Rock Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Through My Eyes: Ruby Bridges Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz: A True Story Retold for Young Readers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miss Rumphius Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Forward
7 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hard to put down. The book is fast-paced...I think that reflects the way Wamback lives her life. I think Wambach has fought some inner demons, and is still fighting others.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Abby Wambach has long been one of my favorite soccer players. Her memoir, Forward, is a rather slight book but provides lots of detail about her history in sports, her coming out as a lesbian, and her struggles with discipline. She's quite frank about her problems with alcohol and pills and the problems that they caused her. Apparently she managed to switch back and forth between a very focused in-season persona and a very relaxed one, but is still working to find an identity that has the necessary restraint without overwhelming tension. A very public DUI arrest gave her the wake-up call that she needed to accept the need for serious change. She is turning the strong focus that she gave athletics to being a spokesperson for various causes, especially the empowerment of young women. For fans, it's an interesting look at how one star athlete dealt with her demons and also with the challenge of doing meaningful things after retiring.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Unfortunately I didn't find this very well written. It's tone was conversational, with poor grammar.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There is so much more....so much depth....I was not expecting such an honest and straightforward memoir. It does center on soccer but takes it much deeper, into her life, her feelings and her climb to sobriety and staying healthy. inspiring and we'll done. an unexpected pleasure
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I love soccer – I’ve been playing it on and off for 30 years – and I especially love women’s soccer. I went to five World Cup matches up in Vancouver Canada last year, including the final, where the USWNT beat Japan 5-2. I have season tickets to the National Women’s Soccer League Seattle Reign (who still have a chance to make the playoffs this year!), and attended the USWNT victory tour match in Seattle last fall. When I learned Ms. Wambach was going to write a book about her life, I knew it was going to be a must read.
Ms. Wambach and I are the same age, but other than both playing soccer and being white women, we don’t have much else in common. She has an intensity that I can’t even begin to imagine, which makes sense – it seems fairly necessary to become elite in any field, especially one as demanding as athletics. For most of her life, she seems to have taken the concept of ‘work hard, play hard’ to the extremes, mainly through either strict adherence to training while in the middle of camps, or through serious ingestion of alcohol and pills. She remains the record holder (male or female) of most international goals, but she is also known for the DUI she received in Portland just a few months after retirement.
There is a brutality to this book that should make it a challenging read, but instead I devoured it. The fuel to turn the pages wasn’t so much born out of a desire to see what next ridiculous high or painful low was going to follow; instead I was genuinely interested in how Ms. Wambach was going to both explain and handle her life experiences. Would she be full of excuses? Philosophical? Would she only barely mention the more challenging parts of her story?
No, she was just honest. She sometimes looks like the hero (as she should), and sometimes she is epically fucking up. She is ultimately human, and I feel like we could only get this story from someone who is no longer in the field, especially if the story is coming from a woman. As we’ve seen lately, with Hope Solo being fired for calling the Swedish team ‘cowards’ (something Cristiano Ronaldo essentially did regarding Iceland to zero consequence), women get a whole lot of negative attention when they don’t fit into the mold we’ve created to represent what it means to be a woman in the public eye.
I don’t think you need to be a soccer fan to enjoy this read, so if you are curious at all, I recommend it.