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Did Anyone Tell You This Was Going to Be Easy?
Looking for an inspirational story about overcoming the odds? You've found it! Read about how the author ran through poverty, bad relationships, and losing family members and then to a place of empowerment, strength, and self love. Find motivation as you laugh, cry and get started on your own journey.
321 pages, Paperback
Published February 23, 2022
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May 26, 2022
I received a copy of this book from the author to review in the Idaho Press. Here is my column in its entirety:
I cannot explain to you how much I hate running.
It might be something to do with my asthma, but I'm guessing it's more about my impatience. Running takes time and energy to get better at. You have to hit the pavement every day and push yourself for mile after mile of boredom and lung-burning pain. And maybe if you do it enough, you'll bring your time down a few seconds. Maybe.
So, it's safe to say I have never, and will never, run an ultra marathon in the mountains of Idaho. I cannot even process what it would be like to be a person who runs for comfort and through pain. But, after reading Boisean Laurel Slyck's debut memoir "Did Anyone Tell You This Was Going to Be Easy?" I have a little bit of an idea of what it's like to build the backbone of your life off of the sport I despise so much.
With an open honesty and an astute eye, Slyck tells the story of a life of running hard, working hard and climbing past challenge after challenge. It begins with her childhood overseas on military bases with her civilian parents and her early years as a strong and steady member of her high school's cross country team. Slyck may never have been a rock star, first place type of runner, but she was pretty solidly top five. With the encouragement of several key coaches, she crawled her way from walking between light poles to running in European championships as a high schooler.
This story isn't just about running through, it's about running through life. And what a life Slyck has lived. Aside from her life in Japan and Germany in the orbit of the U.S. military, she was a pretty typical teenager up until she wasn't. Slyck ended up sucked into an abusive and toxic relationship with a woman in her early 20s while she was in high school that persisted through her college years. In these pages, she examines the toll of that relationship, her verges toward disordered eating and how strange it is to not recognize yourself because your partner has eclipsed everything about you.
Eventually, she shakes this relationship off for good, only to fall deeply in love with a man she met working food service on base back in Germany after her first near completion of college. This seems like a fairy tale come true at first, despite the unexpected poverty that comes with being a brand new military wife with a newborn baby, but it eventually devolves into a nightmare as her husband sinks deeper into alcoholism. What follows is a tough story about loving an addict and deciding when enough is enough, no matter how much you adore your family.
It is so easy from the outside to look at someone who stays in a long-term relationship with someone deep in active addiction and shake your head. Why would someone put up with that sort of thing day in and day out? How can this make sense? In her story, Slyck opens up all of her closets full of skeletons and tells us what it's like to ride the strange roller coaster of a chaotic, alcohol-fueled marriage. There are the good days full of promises to be better and periods of sobriety, but they're always followed by another round of drinking and another round of insults. So many times in this book you want to scream at her to leave, but you also see all the glimmer of reasons she stayed.
This is a powerful debut from Slyck and it feels cathartic in an honest way I'm sure clawed it's way out onto the page. But, her inexperience shows here despite the strength of the narrative. The book is too long in several places, bordering on daily diary entries in some sections. It can be tempting to write every single thing that happened and fully capture the scope of events when writing a memoir, but the deep skill in the genre comes from knowing what to cut and cut until you're only left with your soul on paper. I would have loved to read a version of this book with more extensive editing because I'm sure it would have sung.
If you've ever faced an abusive relationship, difficult pregnancies or you just like stories of people who dig deep and keep on going no matter what, give this story by a fellow Idahoan a try. You can feel her triumph shine through by the end.
I cannot explain to you how much I hate running.
It might be something to do with my asthma, but I'm guessing it's more about my impatience. Running takes time and energy to get better at. You have to hit the pavement every day and push yourself for mile after mile of boredom and lung-burning pain. And maybe if you do it enough, you'll bring your time down a few seconds. Maybe.
So, it's safe to say I have never, and will never, run an ultra marathon in the mountains of Idaho. I cannot even process what it would be like to be a person who runs for comfort and through pain. But, after reading Boisean Laurel Slyck's debut memoir "Did Anyone Tell You This Was Going to Be Easy?" I have a little bit of an idea of what it's like to build the backbone of your life off of the sport I despise so much.
With an open honesty and an astute eye, Slyck tells the story of a life of running hard, working hard and climbing past challenge after challenge. It begins with her childhood overseas on military bases with her civilian parents and her early years as a strong and steady member of her high school's cross country team. Slyck may never have been a rock star, first place type of runner, but she was pretty solidly top five. With the encouragement of several key coaches, she crawled her way from walking between light poles to running in European championships as a high schooler.
This story isn't just about running through, it's about running through life. And what a life Slyck has lived. Aside from her life in Japan and Germany in the orbit of the U.S. military, she was a pretty typical teenager up until she wasn't. Slyck ended up sucked into an abusive and toxic relationship with a woman in her early 20s while she was in high school that persisted through her college years. In these pages, she examines the toll of that relationship, her verges toward disordered eating and how strange it is to not recognize yourself because your partner has eclipsed everything about you.
Eventually, she shakes this relationship off for good, only to fall deeply in love with a man she met working food service on base back in Germany after her first near completion of college. This seems like a fairy tale come true at first, despite the unexpected poverty that comes with being a brand new military wife with a newborn baby, but it eventually devolves into a nightmare as her husband sinks deeper into alcoholism. What follows is a tough story about loving an addict and deciding when enough is enough, no matter how much you adore your family.
It is so easy from the outside to look at someone who stays in a long-term relationship with someone deep in active addiction and shake your head. Why would someone put up with that sort of thing day in and day out? How can this make sense? In her story, Slyck opens up all of her closets full of skeletons and tells us what it's like to ride the strange roller coaster of a chaotic, alcohol-fueled marriage. There are the good days full of promises to be better and periods of sobriety, but they're always followed by another round of drinking and another round of insults. So many times in this book you want to scream at her to leave, but you also see all the glimmer of reasons she stayed.
This is a powerful debut from Slyck and it feels cathartic in an honest way I'm sure clawed it's way out onto the page. But, her inexperience shows here despite the strength of the narrative. The book is too long in several places, bordering on daily diary entries in some sections. It can be tempting to write every single thing that happened and fully capture the scope of events when writing a memoir, but the deep skill in the genre comes from knowing what to cut and cut until you're only left with your soul on paper. I would have loved to read a version of this book with more extensive editing because I'm sure it would have sung.
If you've ever faced an abusive relationship, difficult pregnancies or you just like stories of people who dig deep and keep on going no matter what, give this story by a fellow Idahoan a try. You can feel her triumph shine through by the end.
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