Customer Reviews

The Tonya Tapes

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My husband Greg and I have known Tonya for almost 14 years, and have been with her through many trials in her life. Author Lynda Prouse, captures the depth of personal truma as well as triumph in Tonya's life. If you have had an opinion one way or the other about her, this book will either confirm or change that opinion. In all the years that we have been close to her, she has NEVER wavered from the facts, which you will read. This book is an inspiraton for anyone who has ever suffered abuse at the hands of another, and wants to give up. Tonya has gone through so much, yet through her Faith, has gone on, as she beleives there is a better life. Tonya should be cheered, not jeered. I recommend you read this book, as it will inspire you in so many ways.
Linda Lewis

THE TONYA TAPES is an incredibly fascinating revelation...Tonya (in her own voice)comes across as surprisingly caring and nice--characteristics rarely attributed to her because of her obvious toughness.

Aside from being one of the best pure athletes America has ever produced, Tonya Harding set an athletic standard which wasn't duplicated within the skating world for a generation; and she accomplished that without the help of more than a very small number of people who spurred her on.

This attractive, small woman epitomizes survival; and the book, thru Lynda Prouse's outstanding use of leading questions, does an excellent job enumerating what Tonya had to overcome, including the rough family problems, poverty, non-support from her national federation, her failed marriage and the overriding public doubt regarding her consistent denial that she would ever "hurt her friend, Nancy."

To this day, she retains that position, and never once has anything been proved to contradict it. Highly, highly recommended for people facing tough times and hard choices, for skating fans (of course), and for the worldwide millions who followed her trials and tribulations to see if she would 'make it'--and she has! A brilliant book.

The book is basically Lynda Prouse's conversations with Tonya transcribed. It's not really a story, but reading two people's conversations. They are divided according to topics, but it is still difficult to get through because some of it is not in chronological order.

First off, I admire Lynda Prouse and Tonya Harding for transcribing her recorded tapes verbatim, and not leaving anything out. (Except there are parts that are edited out because she is embarrassed to make it public.)

However, there is a lot of unnecessary, mundane information that is not interesting and could've been cut to make a more smooth and easy consumption. It's frustrating when events are mentioned out of chronological order, and as a reader, I become confused at what happened when.

At times, I wished the book was a biography so it would be more straightforward, summarized and easy to get through.

Tonya is candid, and I support her.

I wished this was an easier book to get through.

"The Tonya Tapes" tells the world what skating insiders and Tonya's fans knew all along: she's more than a champion, she's a SURVIVOR.

Tonya shares it all; from her rocky childhood to her triumphs and disappointments on the ice, the horror of her abusive marriage, and her attempt to rebuild her life after the 1994 National Championships and Olympics.

It's a tragedy that truly guilty athletes are allowed to continue in their respective sports (take a look at the scandals of boxing and the NFL, for instance) yet Ms. Harding is deprived of competing in hers. Skating insiders from those days remember the federation's intense dislike for the blue-collar skater who didn't fit their Little Girl In A Pretty Box image.

I'm glad that Tonya took the courageous step of telling her story. Any victim of childhood abuse or domestic violence can relate to the hurt and pervasive fear that she endured. I hope this proves therapeutic for Tonya, and gives others hope. In these pages is the heart of a champion.

Tonya was on Oprah on 23 April and told her true harrowing tale about abuse at the hands of her ex-husband. Disagree with the nay-sayers, most of whom haven't read the book. Rape is never something to be fickle about. An honest, well written book with probing questions by Lynda Prouse and honest, heartfelt answers by a former champion olympian forced into a situation of life or death. Well worth buying.

The general impression of Tonya is that she assaulted and tried to disable a competing skater. As revealed in this book she only pled guilty to hindering prosecution by giving a false account of the assault. The account was only given after a gun was put to her head, and she was told she would be shot, if she testified otherwise.

Tonya at age 3 decided she wanted to skate. Surviving beatings, rape, thefts, sports injuries, failed marriages and car crashes, she won an Olympic medal, which was revoked on reports of the alleged assault.

What a ride!

I did not think this book was a good read at all. It is written like a magazine interview instead of a story, which makes it hard to get into and easy to skip alot of really boring stuff. There is too much that Tonya claims to not remember, so alot seems to be missing and everything seems a little sketchy. I'm not saying she is lying in the book but the way that it is written is just like reading people talking and I lost interest very fast and was not able to finish it three quarters through.

This book is disorganized, whinny, incoherent, almost unreadable. In fact, at some point I stopped trying to swim through this sludge, and threw the book away.

In full disclosure, I am the publisher. But I am speaking from the heart when I say you will love this book, written by Lynda Prouse, an award-winning Canadian author. It is perfect summer reading. The format is exciting and engaging, and the editing of Dr. Kyle Torke and myself create a lucid, amazing story of a strong, independent woman. Not only that, but this story tells us much about America, and how we deal with our sports figures, and that is very revealing in itself as sociological study. I keep going back to it to re-read! The formatting of Matthew Ward, the pictures, everything is perfect. This book is great!

Geraldo said it best in an interview May 23 2008 on Fox News (right before Tonya appeared the same day), "She (Tonya) is white trailer trash". Nuff said. But really, it's a shame that this type of story dominates our media news cycle, I guess the train wreck is always alluring to read about for most; OJ, the fat chick who died of an overdose a couple of years ago, Britney, whatever... it goes on and on. Success is boring, only the tragic sells, it's a viscous cycle. My advice, just try to tune it out or at least balance it with a good bio like a Jesse Owens or Kareem A Jabbar, Fran Tarkington, Nancy Khwan, Jim Brown, something else other then this trash. Then the publisher self promotes it on Amazon, thats the nail in the coffin for anyone who is actually thinking with a level head. I mean we all know she is one of the ultimate train wrecks, she represented us in the Olympics and did that shoe lace thing is too tight in the middle of the performance, that may have be the last time I actually watched Olympic skating! So there you go, she did a whole lot of bad things to everyone she stood for. She's just a piece of trailer trash, as Geraldo had the guts to say. If you want to buy this go ahead, and you'll see her some more on the airwaves taking up valuable airspace that an uplifting story could replace.