Longlist, Canada Reads 2025
Shortlist, Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize 2014

Girl Runner is the story of Aganetha Smart, a former Olympic athlete who was famous in the 1920s, but now, at age 104, lives in a nursing home, alone and forgotten by history. For Aganetha, a competitive and ambitious woman, her life remains present and unfinished in her mind.

When her quiet life is disturbed by the unexpected arrival of two young strangers, Aganetha begins to reflect on her childhood in rural Ontario and her struggles to make an independent life for herself in the city.

Without revealing who they are, or what they may want from her, the visitors take Aganetha on an outing from the nursing home. As ready as ever for adventure, Aganetha’s memories are stirred when the pair return her to the family farm where she was raised. The devastation of WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic, the optimism of the 1920s and the sacrifices of the 1930s play out in Aganetha’s mind, as she wrestles with the confusion and displacement of the present.

Part historical page-turner, part contemporary mystery, Girl Runner is an engaging and endearing story about family, ambition, athletics and the dedicated pursuit of one’s passions. It is also, ultimately, about a woman who follows the singular, heart-breaking and inspiring course of her life until the very end.

Carrie Snyder is the acclaimed author of three books for adults. Her 2014 novel, Girl Runner, was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and has been translated into several languages. The Juliet Stories was a finalist for the 2012 Governor General’s Literary Award, and her debut short story collection, Hair Hat, was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award for Short Fiction. The Candy Conspiracy is her first book for children. Carrie blogs at Obscure Canlit Mama (http://carrieannesnyder.blogspot.ca), where she documents her writing, photography, recipes, and life with four children. She lives in Waterloo, ON.

Carrie Snyder's profile page

• Long-listed, CBC Canada Reads
• Short-listed, Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize

The thump thump of shoes against the pavement is the heartbeat of Girl Runner

Chatelaine

a beautiful story about following your heart…

CBC Books

Girl Runner is a book that will, and should, find a wide audience…one of my favourite books of 2014.

Waterloo Region Record

Snyder’s imagination has here worked overtime to produce a novel of intriguing originality. The book is well written and totally captivating, and is a rare salute to women in sport.

London Free Press

This is a satisfying story about a complicated and compelling life- a life, so it happens, shaped by running ... Girl Runner makes for a gold medal read.

Canadian Running

readers, get ready to be dazzled

Pickle Me This blog review

In Girl Runner, Carrie Snyder proves that she is a master storyteller

Sukasa Reads blog

sentences with…aphoristic beauty glow throughout the novel

Echolocation

The protagonist of Carrie Snyder’s Girl Runner is fierce and uncompromising

Toronto Star

so beautifully written…one of my favourites of the year

Bookends Newstalk1010

Ultimately, Girl Runner is a beautiful, thoughtful homage to those forgotten women who stepped outside the boundaries of what was allotted to them, and a testament to the struggles and sacrifices that paved the way for the female athletes who followed.

Quill & Quire

…a great read

NOW Magazine

The story itself is compelling and timeless and the female characters are as sharply drawn as if they had been carved from the unyielding earth of the Ontario farmland. Carrie Snyder’s precise images and clear sentences carry the action forward, and her expert handling of the changes in setting make the shifts almost seamless...

Lyricycle

Girl Runner is a well-paced book that weaves together the past and present narratives of an uncompromising woman’s life … Snyder… manages to capture the essence of the need to run, that marrow-deep desire.

Globe and Mail

richly imagined…a story that traces the deep contradictions and challenges of familial bonds and breaks, the mystery of death and mortality, and the hardships of advanced age

Winnipeg Review of Books

If you’re going to read Girl Runner, cancel all of your plans and get comfortable because you are not going to want to put this book down.

EbookClassics

…crisp and smart and lyrical. It is a page-turner.

4mothers1blog

Carrie Snyder has written an extraordinary, accomplished debut novel of love and family: a wonderful story of a free spirit forced to make difficult choices. Aggie Smart is a truly memorable heroine: she grabbed my hand on page one and never let go.

Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants and At the Water’s Edge

a page turner…revelatory

Waterloo Chronicle

Girl Runner...more than lives up to the promise of The Juliet Stories (2012) and Hair Hat (2004)...a complex novel...rhythmic and satisfying.

Winnipeg Free Press

Aganetha Smart is a character all readers will root for; Girl Runner is a celebration of ardent, unapologetic women, and those who won’t stop running. Snyder provides a satisfyingly emotional and gripping read.

Rhubarb Magazine

…what defines the novel is the depth and breadth of Aggie herself; she’s a rare heroine whose rich internal life is matched only by the abundance of her external living.

National Post

Snyder’s novel is lovely. The descriptions…are a breath of palpable fresh air.

This Magazine

In Girl Runner, an exquisitely crafted, deeply imagined novel, former Olympic athlete Aganetha Smart comes to vibrant, often aching life. As she pursues her dream, negotiates the travails of achieving much early in life and navigates the complexities of family and friendship, her captivating story unfolds with the sure-footedness of an elite runner.

Cathy Marie Buchanan, author of The Painted Girls

Aganetha Smart is one of the more memorable characters in recent Canadian fiction

Owen Sound Sun Times

'Girl Runner' is a marvelously complex novel that never loses its way... a powerful novel

Kitchener Waterloo Record