Review: Katie Ledecky’s “Just Add Water” Further Proves What We Already Know

Note: Opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of SwimSwam as a whole.

If you follow swimming closely, you probably have a sense of what Katie Ledecky‘s public persona is like. The most decorated female swimmer of all-time comes off as nonchalant and reserved, and her identity as a swimmer revolves around being a better version of who she was before — even if that version of her is better than what any other woman in history has ever accomplished. Her entire career has been about focusing on herself and the people close to her, as she’s never been one to give into rivalries, controversy, or any other outside noise (unless it’s doping, which she has been very vocal against in the past).

So if you bought Ledecky’s autobiography “Just Add Water” in hopes of discovering juicy details that she’s never spoken about, you’ll probably be disappointed. The book, while interesting, is simply a reaffirmation of her values.

“Just Add Water” is mostly chronological. There are chapters dedicated to pivotal moments in her swimming career (her childhood, her collegiate career at Stanford, the three Olympic Games she’s competed in, the 2015 and 2019 World Championships, the COVID-19 pandemic), and there’s chapters on three of her four coaches (Yuri Suguiyama, Bruce Gemmell, and Anthony Nesty) where she talks about her relationship with those coaches at certain stages in her life. Mixed in between, though, are chapters about her parents, her brother, and her four grandparents, as well as chapters about her values like anti-doping and uplifting women in sports.

I found Ledecky’s book to be very predictable, but that doesn’t mean I was bored. Most of the facts she told about her life were ones that I already knew, but what I got greater insight into was how she felt about certain things. For example, I learned about just how much she valued her extended family from the way she described her two sets of grandparents. She went into such great detail to talk about their pasts and their relationships with her, and although those things don’t feel super relevant to her career, they clearly meant a lot to her and shaped who she was as person. On the contrary, separating from her family and straying away from a routine life made the COVID-19 pandemic seemingly the most difficult period of her life.

Ledecky describes her lifestyle as that of a “sporty nun,” maintaining a strict schedule and striving to be in bed by 9 p.m. every night. Her greatest love aside from her family is the monotonous rigor of training for distance races, and she’s dedicated almost her entire life toward trying to do it the best (she admits that she enjoys training even more swimming). I can sense her passion when she talks about her galloping stroke, her pacing strategy or her closing speed more than with anything else — reading her book proved to me that while some athletes are bigger than their sport, Ledecky is her sport.

Some subjects matters that have been major talking points in Ledecky’s career among the fan base, such as her lack of improvement following the 2016 Olympics or her “rivalry” in the 400 freestyle with Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, were barely addressed in the book (and the latter point was even downplayed by her). But there were also some moments where she revealed things about her that were never public before, such as her struggle with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition that causes reduced blood flow when one stands up.

But perhaps my favorite part of “Just Add Water” was when Ledecky expressed a rare hesitancy with her future, in contrary with her seemingly linear life trajectory. At the end of her book, she talked about how her “rigorous devotion to training has not been awesome for [her] romantic life,” never having been in a serious relationship, and her fear of coming off as closed off due to her dedication to swimming. And while she’s content with her lifestyle, she did say that she one day wants to have a family, which would conflict with her career at this point. She describes the pressure of choosing between an athletic career and a family as an issue unique to female athletes, and something that gives her “mixed feelings.” That part of the book, in my opinion, was when she sounded the most vulnerable.

It’s moments like those that really humanize Ledecky to me, showing that while she’s world record holder, she also faces the same struggles that everyone else does.

Yes, from a content perspective, Ledecky probably didn’t answer the questions that swimming fans have wanted to know about her (and quite frankly, I don’t think she cares). But the deeper insight into what we already knew about her made reading “Just Add Water” all worth it.