A novel about a star of sports gymnastics, an icon of East European communism, and a symbol of its collapse. Nadia Comăneci—famous Romanian gymnast, five-time Olympic champion, two-time world champion, nine-time European champion. Her rise came at the sunset of the communist era in Romania and, more broadly, in Eastern Europe. Nadia’s fate became a symbol of both her ascent and the rapid collapse of communist ideology. Lola Lafon’s book is not a documentary biography—it is a portrait of the time and a portrait of a ruthless regime that ground not only ordinary people, but also those it raised to the top. Nadia Comăneci’s story is astonishingly dramatic and full of events almost like a detective plot. The world knew Nadia as a fragile little girl fluttering above the apparatus, but in truth she is full of contradictions and even secrets. So who is Nadia Comăneci? A robot girl, a child of a totalitarian regime, or a woman who spent her whole life trying to fly higher than everyone else?