Character Reads: What’s on Circket & Mia’s Nightstand
Perhaps just as revealing as the titles themselves is how each of these books found their way to Cricket and Mia’s nightstands. Since Cricket isn’t much of a reader, I imagine Forward and Tiny Beautiful Things were both gifts from Mia, who knew Wambach’s experience on the soccer field – and the pressure she put on herself to “win” her mother’s love – would resonate with her sister. Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things offers such wisdom in relatively bite-size, grab-and-go essays that it would feel accessible and not intimidating to Cricket. Achieving Excellence would be the one book Cricket picked out for herself for obviously pertinent reasons, especially since Dr. Hacker has served as a sport psychology consultant for the USWNT for decades.
Mia’s bookstack reflects her lifelong love of reading and learning. Despite dropping out of college, Mia continues to peruse her alma mater’s suggested reading lists and has not only befriended all the librarians at Victory Library but has even been invited to join their secret book club. So these titles are just a glimpse into an ever-changing stack of spines, but it makes sense Mia would want to read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s reflection on losing a parent, having already reveled in the rest of her work. Mia would love getting lost in both The Overstory and Pachinko, both sweeping, brilliant sagas that she would appreciate digging into with her book club.
