Duct Tape and Determination - Jacky Hunt-Broersma
Duct Tape and Determination is one of the most moving running memoirs I've read in a long time. On the surface, it's the story of an ultrarunner who lost her leg to cancer and went on to pursue challenges that would seem near unimaginable to runners with two healthy legs. But underneath lies a story of resilience, identity, grief, and what it means to keep fighting.
The passages that stayed with me most were not about race results but about pain. When the author writes that sometimes you learn to carry pain "like a dark secret," accepting that it cannot be escaped but refusing to let it define your future, I felt understood. I live with a much milder, invisible disability, and although our circumstances are vastly different, her words spoke to me.
I also connected with her openness about her eating disorder. Having struggled with one myself, I couldn't help but think how difficult body image and recovery must have been after losing a leg. Society already places impossible expectations on our bodies, and she faced the additional challenge of learning to see herself in a body that had changed so dramatically. I'm in awe of the relationship the author built with herself in the process.
Perhaps the most powerful chapters explore the misconceptions surrounding disability. Reading that strangers believed her prosthetic blade gave her an unfair advantage was heartbreaking, especially when she explains that she expends roughly 20 percent more energy to run than someone without a prosthesis—and that this doesn't begin to account for the emotional energy required to constantly advocate for herself. Her discussion of Blake Leeper's exclusion from the Tokyo Paralympics and the reality that many prosthetics are still designed primarily around male athletes further exposes how misunderstood adaptive athletes continue to be.
This is an inspiring book, but more importantly, it's an honest one. It isn't just a hero’s tale morphing disability into either tragedy or triumph and instead shows the messy work of building a new life. I finished the book with enormous admiration for the author—not just for the miles she has run, but for her willingness to tell the whole story.
In gratitude to Sourcebooks for the Advance Reader's Copy.
