We Loved to Run

“The heroism of women with a common cause, in a world of men who think they know best, makes for a moving narrative.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Stephanie Reents’s bold, propulsive first novel explores the experience of running cross-country through the plural voices of six female runners at a small liberal arts college.”—Shelf Awareness

“Reents has written a new kind of campus novel: a funny, inventive, warmhearted portrait of a college cross country team that begins as an insightful exploration of human competitiveness and becomes a moving ode to surviving trauma through female friendship and collective action. This novel is a wild, brave run through the dark, and the ending might stir you to tears.”—Eric Puchner, New York Times bestselling author of Dream State

“Pulled tense with all the beauty, strength, and desperation of youth, We Loved to Run is a stunner of a novel. It’s as gorgeous and ferocious as the sport at its center, covering miles in the lives of the star runners on a college cross-country team. This book is muscles in motion and hearts spilled out. It’s a tribute to what the body can do, what it suffers, and how it survives.”—Julia Phillips, bestselling author of Bear and Disappearing Earth

“We Loved to Run is smart, funny, compelling, important, and, best of all maybe, different from other campus novels and other sports novels and other coming-of-age novels, though it is all of those. Stephanie Reents has written the rarest of debuts: one that ensures you’ll read everything else she ever writes. I really, really, really loved this novel.”—Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This Is How It Always Is

“We Loved to Run jumps out of the gates and doesn’t let up, not even for a second—it’s blistering, it’s unputdownable.”—Marisa Crane, author of A Sharp Endless Need

“A propulsive read . . . The six teammates at the heart of this novel, and the torturous, rapturous experience of racing together, are made vivid through Stephanie Reents’s exquisite prose.”—Leah Hager Cohen, author of Strangers and Cousins

“I was moved and captivated by this elite crew of complicated, intense, altogether real college athletes. You will love We Loved to Run.”—Daphne Kalotay, author of The Archivists

“I couldn’t stop reading We Loved to Run. A poet of speed, a chronicler of exhilaration, Stephanie Reents reminds us that why we run, and what we run from, ultimately matter less than what, or whom, we choose to run to.”—Andrew Altschul, author of The Gringa

“Rousing . . . The narrative doesn’t shy away from the darker realities of college life—including substance use and eating disorders—as well as the mental intensity of elite athletics, bringing an authentic perspective to the characters’ struggles, connections, and fortitude.”—Booklist

“Reents offers a fresh perspective on the tension between an athlete’s personal sacrifice and a team’s group identity, especially as the runners seek to harness each other’s strengths. This is worth a look.”—Publishers Weekly