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“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.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Awards
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Release date
May 7, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593948675
- File size: 305557 KB
- Duration: 10:36:34
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Andia Winslow narrates WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner's memoir, which has a strong focus on her imprisonment in Russia. Winslow's delivery is outstanding; she recounts the fear and frustration that Griner went through during her ordeal. Winslow deftly projects Griner's emotions every step of the way, imitating her captors' Russian accents only when appropriate. While the memoir is detailed, there is little focus on Griner's time at Baylor University. However, she is open about the perceptions of her sexuality and deftly weaves in recollections of her upbringing. Coupled with its honest account of what happened in Russia, this memoir is a fascinating listen. M.B. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine -
Starred review from February 14, 2025
In this memoir written with Michelle Burford, three-time Olympic gold-medal basketball player Griner lays bare her experience of being imprisoned in Russia in 2022. The memoir begins with her backstory, as Griner shares how she became who she is today. When Griner was a high school senior, she was outed as a lesbian by a teammate's mother, which sent her into a tailspin. However, she forged on, playing women's basketball at Baylor University and then with the Phoenix Mercury. Like many other WNBA players, pay disparity led Griner to play in other countries during the off-season; this is why she was flying into Moscow in 2022. There, she was detained for possession of medically prescribed cannabis oil. Throughout the nearly yearlong ordeal that followed, Griner stayed strong, forging meaningful relationships with other prisoners and eventually coming home through a prisoner trade between Russia and the United States. Griner reads the introduction for the audio edition, while Andia Winslow narrates the bulk of the book, capturing Griner's pitch and manner with clarity and feeling. Winslow speaks with an even, carefully inflected tone, providing a window into the inner turmoil Griner experienced as she was kept from her loved ones. VERDICT A deeply affecting account, revealing Griner's resilience and the deep love that sustained her throughout a harrowing time.--Misty Schattle
Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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