MixedThe Washington PostThe biggest revelation by far is the never-before told story of Sara Teristi, a former gymnast who met Nassar in 1988 and, Pesta writes, \'may have been his very first target\' ... Teristi’s is a vital entry in the public files on Nassar. It is also among the few aspects of Pesta’s book that lives up to the \'untold story\' promise of its title. Much of what Pesta includes here has been covered extensively elsewhere. Pesta is a gentle, empathetic narrator, taking care to show readers the emotional toll of reliving trauma ... But The Girls doesn’t have...lived-in expertise ... Pesta’s writing lacks...lyrical ache and intensity ... Although Pesta’s reporting and analysis give a thorough, damning portrait of the culture that aided and abetted Nassar, she rarely steps back to put the story in a broader context ... In some ways, her writing mirrors the cloistered space in which these women were groomed and abused, where there is no world beyond the walls of the gym.
Emily Nussbaum
PositiveThe Washington PostNussbaum’s once-iconoclastic views have become mainstream. That obnoxious guy who used to brag that he didn’t own a TV can now be seen holding court over cocktails about how you must watch Fleabag. (Really though: You must!) ... Emily Nussbaum won the argument. Now what? ... Over and over, Nussbaum pushes back against a hierarchy that rewards dramas centered on men and hyperbolically masculine pursuits (dealing drugs, being a cop, committing murders, having sex with beautiful women) and shoves comedies and whatever scans as \'female\' to the side. Nussbaum both punctures the often-inflated praise around male narratives peppered with \'interchangeable female corpses\' and elevates the stories of women that are frequently neglected ... Nussbaum’s writing consistently comes back to the question of \'whose stories carried weight . . . what kind of creativity counted as ambitious, and who . . . deserved attention . . . Whose story counted as universal?\' To that end, Nussbaum writes not just about the shows themselves but the people with the power to determine whose shows get made and seen at all.
