Memoir Monday...

Molly's Game by Molly Bloom... From the back cover: When Molly Bloom was a little girl growing up in a small Colorado town, she watched her brothers win medals, ace tests, and receive high praise from everyone they met. Molly wanted nothing more than to bask in that glow a little herself, so she pushed herself too—as a student, as an athlete. She was successful but felt like she was always coming from behind. She wanted to break free, to find a life without rules and limits, a life where she didn't have to measure up to anyone or anything—where she could become whatever she wanted.

Molly wanted more, and she got more than she could have ever bargained for.

In Molly's Game, Molly Bloom takes the reader through her adventures running an exclusive high-stakes private poker game. Her clients ranged from iconic stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck to politicians and financial titans so powerful they moved markets and changed the course of history. With rich detail, Molly describes a world that until now has been shrouded in glamour, privilege, and secrecy, one where she fearlessly took on the Russian and Italian mobs—until she met the one adversary she could not outsmart, even though she had justice on her side: the United States government.

Molly's Game is an incredible coming-of-age story about a young girl who rejected convention in pursuit of her version of the American dream. It's the story of how she gained—and then lost—her place at the table, and of everything she learned about poker, love, and life in the process.

I'm not really sure where I saw this originally. The cover struck me and I had to read what it was about. I thought it was some piece of literary fiction with a central character that had some cat and mouse game going on. But wow, it looks like this definitely is not what I was expecting! Molly Bloom was an olympic class skier, who got involved with high stakes poker that lead her to be arrested by 17 automatic rifle wielding FBI agents in the middle of the night. I'm thinking Orange Is The New Black meets poker. I read an excerpt and really liked the writing! It's now a major motion picture... read the book before the movie! On my TBR list NOW!