Service95 Recommends is the home of the books we love and reviews from our contributors. Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel is told over two days of a boxing championship in the United States and follows eight teenage girl boxers as the boxers’ past and futures collide.
What We Say: “Set at the Daughter’s of America Cup in Bob’s Boxing Palace in Reno, Nevada, a fictional amateur boxing tournament for women aged 18 and under. Headshot follows the eight young contenders over the course of the weekend, giving glimpses of their hopes and dreams as well as their past and their future. Stripping back the glamour associated with the top ranks of the sport to reveal the fight that often goes on within, each of the young women, whether victor or loser, emerges quietly heroic. Strikingly original, it’s as punchy as the title suggests” — Maria Padget
What They Say: “Make room, American fiction, for a meaningful new voice. . . . Whatever [Bullwinkel] turns her attention to glows under her scrutiny. . . . This is kinetic writing, but it would mean little without this novel’s undertow of human feeling and the rapt attention it pays to life’s bottom dogs, young women who are short on sophistication but long on motivation...” — Dwight Garner
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Maria Padget is Service95 Book Club Director
