Best Fiction and Nonfiction Books About Athletes, Ambition & the Price of Winning
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Ready to find out what happens when the thing you’re best at becomes the thing your whole life revolves around?
I’ve never been a particularly sporty person. I might watch a match now and then, but following scores and rankings? Definitely not me.
And yet, I love books about athletes.
There’s something fascinating about characters who want to be the best so badly that everything else begins to revolve around that goal. From tennis champions and Olympic hopefuls to hockey rivals, these stories are about much more than sport. They’re about ambition, sacrifice, rivalry, love, and what happens when winning isn’t enough.
And you don’t need to be a sports fan to get completely caught up in them.
Ready to find out what happens when the thing you’re best at becomes your whole life?
Happy Reading!
Sports Fiction Books Worth Adding to Your TBR
Carrie Soto is Back
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Carrie Soto has spent her life striving to be the best. By the time she retires from professional tennis, she holds nearly every record that matters, until a younger player threatens to take one of them away. At thirty-seven, Carrie returns to the court with her father Javier coaching her and one goal in mind: prove she still has what it takes. I loved how unapologetically ambitious Carrie is, even when that makes her difficult to like. Every match feels personal because, for Carrie, losing isn’t simply losing a game; it’s losing the identity she’s spent her entire life building.
The Favorites
by Layne Fargo
Katarina Shaw has always known exactly what she wants: Olympic gold. When she meets Heath Rocha, she finds the ice-dancing partner who might actually help her get there, and together they become the pair everyone is watching. But behind the dazzling routines, medals, and headlines is a relationship shaped by fierce ambition, jealousy, love, and scandal. This is exactly the kind of sports novel I wanted for this list. You get the thrill of watching two athletes chase greatness while slowly realizing just how much that dream is costing them.
You Will Know Me
by Megan Abbott
Devon Knox isn’t simply talented at gymnastics. She’s an Olympic hopeful, and her parents have rearranged almost every part of their lives around helping her get there. Early mornings, expensive training, injuries, competitions, and years of sacrifice all seem worth it, until a sudden death shakes their close-knit gymnastics community. This shifts the pressure around an elite young athlete into something wonderfully unsettling. The further you read, the harder it becomes to separate Devon’s dream from everyone else’s obsession with seeing her achieve it.
Deep End
by Ali Hazelwood
Scarlett Vandermeer is a Stanford diver trying to recover from an injury without letting it derail everything she’s worked toward. Meanwhile, Lukas Blomqvist is an accomplished swimmer whose discipline and focus have earned him an Olympic spot. An unexpected arrangement brings them together, but what starts casually becomes increasingly difficult to keep that way.
From Lukov with Love
by Mariana Zapata
Years of training haven’t given Jasmine Santos the figure-skating career she imagined, and she’s starting to wonder how much longer she can keep chasing it. Then champion skater Ivan Lukov offers her the partnership that could finally give her another chance. There’s just one problem: they can barely stand each other. I came for the enemies-to-lovers setup, but Jasmine’s stubborn refusal to give up on herself is what makes this such a good fit here. Sometimes being an athlete isn’t about winning. It’s about finding the nerve to try one more time.
The Singles Game
by Lauren Weisberger
After a devastating injury knocks Charlie Silver off course, the professional tennis player decides that being the sport’s nice girl isn’t getting her where she wants to go. She hires a notoriously demanding coach and begins rebuilding everything, from her game to her public image. Soon she’s moving between major tournaments, sponsors, celebrity parties, and the relentless pressure of becoming a champion.
Save for Later
Beartown
by Fredrik Backman
In the small town of Beartown, hockey is everywhere. The local junior team carries the hopes of a community desperate for something to celebrate, and everyone is counting on its talented players to finally bring home a championship. Then, a serious accusation is made against the team’s star and the town is forced to choose between protecting the future they’ve dreamed about and facing what really happened.
The Deal
by Elle Kennedy
College hockey star Garrett Graham needs to pass a class to stay on the ice, so he convinces Hannah Wells to tutor him in exchange for helping her catch another guy’s attention. Their deal soon turns into something neither expected. Funny, romantic, and full of chemistry, this is an easy pick when you’re craving a lighter sports read. And now Hannah and Garrett’s story has made its way to the screen as the first season of the Off Campus TV series.
The Art of Fielding
by Chad Harbach
Henry Skrimshander seems destined for greatness. He’s a remarkably gifted college shortstop whose almost flawless fielding has begun attracting serious attention, until one disastrous throw changes everything. Suddenly, the thing Henry has always trusted himself to do becomes the thing he can no longer do at all. I love the question at the center of this one: what happens when the talent you’ve built your entire future around suddenly deserts you?
Headshot
by Rita Bullwinkel
Eight teenage girls step into the ring at a boxing tournament in Reno, each convinced she has something to prove. As the matches unfold, the novel moves between punches, memories, rivalries, and glimpses of the women these young fighters might eventually become. These girls want to win, and Bullwinkel shows us how personal that desire can become.
Books about Athletes for YA Readers
The Crossover
by Kwame Alexander
Basketball-playing twins Josh and Jordan Bell have always moved through life as a team. They’re talented, competitive, and growing up under the guidance of a father who knows something about the game himself. But new relationships, sibling rivalry, and changes at home begin pulling the brothers in different directions. Told in verse, this moves with the rhythm of a basketball game, sometimes fast and playful, sometimes suddenly quiet.
The Running Dream
by Wendelin Van Draanen
Running is the thing Jessica loves most, so waking after an accident to discover that part of her leg has been amputated feels like losing far more than the ability to race. Suddenly she’s watching her teammates continue without her while learning how to move through ordinary life again. Then a prosthetic designed for running gives Jessica something she thought she’d lost completely: another goal.
Top 3 Nonfiction Books Written by Athletes
Open
by Andre Agassi
Andre Agassi became one of the biggest names in tennis, but behind the trophies was a far more complicated relationship with the sport that defined his life. Pushed into tennis by his father from childhood, Agassi writes candidly about training, rebellion, fame, losing, relationships, and the strange reality of becoming extraordinary at something he didn’t always love. Even if you never watch tennis, this is the one I’d start with. It’s less about collecting championships and more about figuring out who you are when everyone already thinks they know you.
The Mamba Mentality
by Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bryant didn’t simply want to play basketball well. He wanted to understand every detail that might make him better. In The Mamba Mentality, he takes readers inside the preparation behind his career, from studying opponents and refining individual moves to training through injuries and approaching each game with intense focus. Longtime NBA photographer Andrew D. Bernstein’s photographs bring that world onto the page, too. If Carrie’s relentless need to be the best fascinated you in Carrie Soto Is Back, this is an interesting glimpse at what that level of determination can look like in real life.
Undisputed Truth
by Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history, but his life outside the ring was every bit as turbulent as his fights inside it. In Undisputed Truth, he looks back at his difficult childhood, extraordinary rise, fame, addiction, prison, and the choices that nearly destroyed everything he’d achieved. Tyson’s story may be raw and uncomfortable as it describes a darker side of what can happen when talent, ambition, and fame collide, but it’s also a fascinating look at the man behind one of boxing’s most famous names
I may never understand the appeal of spending hours training for a race, but these books definitely made me understand the people who do. Which book about an athlete would you add to the list?
