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Book Cover for: Coming Home, Brittney Griner

Coming Home

Brittney Griner

Reader Score

88%

88% of readers

recommend this book

Critic Reviews

Great

Based on 3 reviews on

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The New York Times Best Seller
2024 The New York Times Best Seller
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the nine-time women's basketball icon and two-time Olympic gold medalist--a raw, revelatory account of her unfathomable detainment in Russia and her journey home.

"Compelling . . . An intimate, honest recollection of Griner's time held captive in Russia. Coming Home reads as a deeply personal, publicly powerful documentation of what happened--what is still happening--to her body and mind." --Slate


On February 17, 2022, Brittney Griner arrived in Moscow ready to spend the WNBA offseason playing for the Russian women's basketball team where she had been the centerpiece of previous championship seasons. Instead, a security checkpoint became her gateway to hell when she was arrested for mistakenly carrying under one gram of medically prescribed hash oil. Brittney's world was violently upended in a crisis she has never spoken in detail about publicly--until now.

In Coming Home, Brittney finally shares the harrowing details of her sudden arrest days before Russia invaded Ukraine; her bewilderment and isolation while navigating a foreign legal system amid her trial and sentencing; her emotional and physical anguish as the first American woman ever to endure a Russian penal colony while the #WeAreBG movement rallied for her release; the chilling prisoner swap with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout; and her remarkable rise from hostage to global spokesperson on behalf of America's forgotten. In haunting and vivid detail, Brittney takes readers inside the horrors of a geopolitical nightmare spanning ten months.

And yet Coming Home is more than Brittney's journey from captivity to freedom. In an account as gripping as it is poignant, she shares how her deep love for Cherelle, her college sweetheart and wife of six years, anchored her during their greatest storm; how her family's support pulled her back from the brink; and how hundreds of letters from friends and neighbors lent her resolve to keep fighting. Coming Home is both a story of survival and a testament to love--the bonds that brought Brittney home to her family, and at last, to herself.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
  • Publish Date: May 7th, 2024
  • Pages: 320
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.20in - 6.00in - 1.20in - 1.27lb
  • EAN: 9780593801345
  • Categories: MemoirsWomenSports

About the Author

BRITTNEY GRINER is a pioneer, humanitarian, and activist and was named as one of TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2023. Griner is an NCAA champion, a WNBA champion, and a two-time Olympic gold medalist. Winner of the Best Female Athlete ESPY Award, and a nine-time WNBA All-Star, Griner is one of the most decorated and influential athletes of this generation.

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

"A visceral, harrowing account of what it's like to be trapped inside Russia's infamous criminal justice system, with its merciless judges and vast labor camps." --The New York Times Book Review

"Compelling . . . An intimate, honest recollection of Griner's time held captive in Russia. Coming Home reads as a deeply personal, publicly powerful documentation of what happened--what is still happening--to her body and mind." --Slate

"Riveting . . . Coming Home delves unflinchingly into the dehumanizing indignities the Olympic athlete suffered during the 10 months she served out of a nine-year sentence." --The Washington Post

"A detailed accounting of Griner's harrowing journey through a Russian legal system known for its corruption . . . Read her book, a 300-plus page deep dive on an experience many of us wouldn't have been able to recover from, and I suspect your empathy will grow - for her and all of humanity . . . The ripple effect in life is real, and if Griner's honesty helps even a dozen readers see the world differently, that impact, her impact, will be felt for years. Griner's book will get people talking to each other, and that's when real change begins." --Lindsay Schnell, USA Today

"A compelling, often chilling look inside today's version of the Gulag." --Kirkus Reviews