****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Though marketed as a book offering advice to tennis parents, "Mix It Up, Make It Nice: Secrets of a Tennis Mom" is more of a memoir: Betty Blake offers varying levels of detail on her childhood, meeting her husband Tom, her sons' childhood, and losing Tom, ending with James's Olympic run in Beijing in 2008. Her book is peppered with quotes and often repeats her key piece of advice: don't pressure your kids. Let them lead normal lives.Though the advice she gives is great, some of her recaps are confusing - one paragraph will be about a 2007 match at a particular tournament, then the next about 2008, and then back to 2007; stronger transitions would make the reading process a bit less confusing for folks who don't know James's career as well as she does. In the same vein, Blake utilizes digressions to add colour to her memoir; though the inserted stories deepen the reader's understanding of her life, they bisect the main focus and might read better if they had been placed differently.There's also a minor copy editing issue: Blake doesn't use the customary comma between city and state (i.e. "Fairfield CT" in lieu of "Fairfield, CT").Blake's memoir is touching and adds a lot of depth to the James Blake many of us have seen on TV - this book is a great read especially for those who have read James's book, "Breaking Back".
