Online Book Club Review (M1): ‘The Most Unlikely Champion’

Review by Mantha1, Published Jun 17, 2020

The Most Unlikely Champion by Vera Koo is an autobiography of the author. Vera Koo gives us the front row seat as she takes us through her journey into sport shooting, a male-dominated sport, and how she used this sport to conquer different challenges in her personal life. In this book, the author tells us about how she went through the loss of a child, almost gave up on her marriage, broke one of her legs pretty badly, and how she found God while honing her sport shooting skills. This is an inspiring story of a woman who despite growing up in a traditional Chinese home, and her slight stature, pursued her dreams at an age where friends were retiring from their careers and had nothing to do with the time on their hands. Not only did she win one competition, but she also went ahead and won several competitions to the surprise of those who looked down on her at first. This goes to show that you should never judge a book by its cover.

The first thing that caught my fancy about this book apart from the title, was how well the author told her story. She drew me into her life with the way she wrote about her experiences as a child, wife, sport shooter, friend, and mother. She took me on an adventurous journey into her life, and I was extremely inspired. Although I had no prior experience in sport shooting, the author wrote in such a way that I understood things about sport shooting that she described in this book, and they were not overwhelming at all. In fact, I was enthralled to the point that I wanted to know more about this sport. For the life of me, I would never have thought that shooting could have a positive effect on anyone, but after reading this book, I now know that there is more to shooting than just pointing a gun at a target.

There is a saying that goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” I think Vera Koo took this into consideration when she added pictures of her time as a sport shooter, as well as that of her family. These pictures really helped a lot in putting the faces to the names that were mentioned in this book, as well as matching the pictures to the events that took place in her life as a sport shooter.

As much as I liked the fact that the author added pictures to this book, I would have loved it even more if the pictures of the events that took place had accompanied the stories as she told them. This, in my opinion, would have carried the reader along better. Nevertheless, this book was still a great read, and I had an exciting time reading it.

I strongly believe that this book was professionally edited because I hardly noticed any errors, save for two typographical errors that did not thwart my reading experience in any way. As a result of how much I loved reading this book, I cannot imagine it deserving anything less than four out of four stars. This book would definitely appeal to everyone because it is a book I believe anyone can learn from. It is such an inspiring book that could even help push some people to take bold steps that they have been stalling to take all their lives.

Original review of The Most Unlikely Champion can be found here.