BOOK REVIEW: Simply Verona; Breaking all the Rules
By: Sarah Benchley
Tags: Gymnastics, Sex Work, Simply Verona, Verona Van De Leur, Book Review

Author Verona van de Leur, Instagram @veronagymnast2

Simply Verona — Breaking All the Rules

Verona van de Leur

Hardcover, 476 pages

Published March 2020

Gaudinum

Gymnastics memoirs are a specific breed of sports stories. Typically they serve one of two purposes: to tell an all-ages inspirational story about a teenage girl with special abilities and how she overcame adversity to win the Olympics, or cautionary tales of the dangers and hardships of gymnastics, warning parents and athletes off the sport entirely.

Simply Verona manages to do both splendidly.

Dutch gymnast Verona Van de Leur describes her life as a gifted young athlete. Not everyone understands how a child can be so passionate and motivated. For most people, it seems that kind of focus is antithetical to what most of us think of as childhood. The assumption is almost always that a child doesn’t know any better and that the parents are forcing into the gym. Verona illustrates her childhood passion with a clarity other gymnastics authors haven’t always been able to accomplish.

The ability of someone so young to not just survive under the watchful eye of an abusive coach and in the thick of a strained relationship with her parents, but to thrive is remarkable. It speaks of strong character; the innocence of a child with a big dream vs the sinister intentions of the adults around her. With all the stage parent charm of the Moceanus and nightmare hellscape coaching methods of the infamous Karolyis, the adults in Verona’s life took her dreams and her talent and wrung every last penny, every drop of sweat, and battered every earnest goal she had until there was nothing left for her to give.

There is a culture of abuse in gymnastics that has been systematically covered up for decades. While the Larry Nassar scandal is the most recent and high-profile instance, Simply Verona discloses intimate details about the physical and emotional abuse she witnessed and endured for most of her childhood — sanctioned by both of her parents, her coaches, and the Royal Dutch Gymnastics Federation (KNGU). It’s a very appropriate time in history for stories like these to be told, and the perpetrators of abuse are put on blast.

With her gymnastics career over, Verona was thrown away. Robbed of the money she’d earned doing gymnastics and with her reputation in tatters due to the vitriol of her now-estranged parents and former coaches, she took up with a mysterious older man with a history of criminal offenses.

If you already know who Verona van de Leur is, then you already know how after her gymnastics career ended she became an adult entertainer. The story of how she got there is not unique: girl falls on hard times, girl makes mistakes, girl can’t get regular job, girl becomes sex worker. Only now, instead of stage parents from hell or a tyrannical coach, her business partner is her boyfriend — the very one that entered her life as her world got dark.

Verona speaks frankly about her career in adult entertainment, from which she has since retired. Modeling, webcamming, and the sale of merchandise gave her an opportunity for a new beginning, a chance to get on her feet. Hers is a story of how a career in sex work can offer performers the freedom to more steady employment — something they may not be entitled to if they have even the most minor criminal activity on their records. She details how she has since embarked on a career as a lifestyle blogger and public speaker, using her platform to expand the conversation that’s been happening around the epidemic of child abuse in sports.

Gymnasts can be such people pleasers. Even when we love what we do, we crave the approval of our parents, our coaches, our audience, and the judges. Verona is not so different. The subtitle of her book may be “breaking all the rules,” but she really, truly only broke one important one: shut up. And for that, the gymnastics community owes her a debt of gratitude.