Ronda Rousey isn’t just the most recognizable women in the UFC, she is is arguably one of the most recognizable athletes in the world today. It’s no exaggeration to say that Rousey has become a global superstar. Since making her UFC debut in 2013, she has emerged as one of the best female MMA fighters in the world: Rousey is now an author, actress, magazine cover model, and fashion icon.

I like sports, but I’d never watched the UFC. It became really hard for me to ignore it when I kept hearing the name Ronda Rousey. I, like most people, had heard about her quick wins in the octagon. I watched a few youtube videos on her fights and was extremely impressed.  So when I found out that she wrote a book, I decided to read it.

Her book My Fight/Your Fight is a look at the personal and professional highs and lows of the MMA starlet.  Alongside award-winning journalist Maria Burns Ortiz, who also happens to be her sister, Rousey details the good, the bad and the ugly. Though Ortiz clearly brings the writing technique, the voice is unmistakably charged with Rousey’s trademark cavalier charm and candid sass. She reveals stories that include failed relationships, the happiness after medaling at the Olympics and even her feelings that led her to run away from home.

Rousey state,s “I dissociate from pain, because I am not the pain that I am feeling.” Yet the pains of her childhood play an important role in the book. She had no easy path to the top. She overcame a speech impediment, an eating disorder and heartbreaking losses inside and out of competition, the biggest lost coming from the death of her father.

From the outside looking in, Rousey’s career has been a one-way ascending escalator to MMA. In reality, her success was largely forged out of missteps and detours. She works through it all and uses it to become great.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the each chapter begins with a monologue from Rousey in the present describing how the chapter or her past shaped her. They can be anything from judo to MMA to life.

Overall, this book is a glimpse into the mind and of one of the best athletes of our time. This book showed that despite what some people may say she has worked for her accomplishments despite many unfortunate circumstances in her life. She has made it through, and look where she is now. I am now a Ronda Rousey fan. Recently, she suffered her first loss. But, as she said in her book post, “she’ll be back,” because she’s been through worse.