Look up 'fighter' in Webster's Dictionary and it may describe pugilism but after you read the story of Christy Martin in her autobiography Fighting For Survival throw away any dictionary that dares to describe what a fighter is or where they come from. Read this book and thank Ron Borges for telling Christy's story like only a great boxing writer could. It's a moving tale about how one person could find a way to take on life's version of Murderers' Row, with the Devil as her cornerman, and triumph over them all. She doesn't belong only in boxing's Hall of Fame. Christy Martin belongs in the Human Being's Hall of Fame.

Teddy Atlas, ESPN's Hall of Fame boxing analyst and trainer

The book is called Fighting for Survival. But you can't tell a book by its cover or its title - at least not this one. Sportswriters throw around the word “courage” as though it came with the franchise like a set or shoulder pads or a batting helmet. In 70 years in this business, I have known hundreds of athletes and have written their personal stories. But only a rare few of them had the kind of courage that Hemingway defined as “grace under pressure.” And now there is Christy Martin. During her boxing days, she was the prototype of an athlete, driven to be the best, combining gifted skills with the kind of courage that never took a night off. Martin was, and still is, a fighter. Nobody has written an autobiography as candid, honest and heart-wrenching as hers. And nobody ever had to fight harder outside the ring for survival. For me, the life story she authored with Ron Borges would be the best sports book of the year or even the decade, except that it isn't a sports story at all. It goes far beyond that. She fights on with the power of words and history. She talks against abuse in churches and prisons and battered wives shelters and anywhere else where people will listen. This is one hell of a book.

Jerry Izenberg, The Star-Ledger

Fighters tend to be fashioned from abuse: economic, emotional, physical. Even by prevailing pugilistic standards, though, what Christy Martin withstood seems exceptionally cruel and heartbreaking. So, yes, Fighting for Survival is a brutal but nuanced story of an authentic trailblazer, expertly told by Ron Borges. But to call it a memoir of abuse is to sell it way short. This is the story of a woman coming to terms with herself, an account of the unlikeliest victories, in the ring, and of the soul.

Mark Kriegel, New York Times best-selling author of Namath: A Biography; Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich; and The Good Son

The shame and stigma that plague all victimizing conditions (domestic violence, addiction, etc.) and serve to further isolate those who are hurt by them are combatted here by such a candid view of the inner and contextual circumstances of one remarkable survivor. Fighting for Survival is a story that needs to be heard by anyone who's felt pain, shame, hurt, or despair. It's for anyone who's looked at someone's life and judged; who thought they could possibly know what's inside a person or happening to them behind closed doors. This book is for anyone who's ever felt that they were down for the count; who felt ashamed for taking a knee; who stared up at the world like a fighter on the canvas watching the ref about to count them out. You've got a little fight left in you. It's not over, and you can get back up.

Elizabeth Thielen, LPC, PCGC, Senior Director, Nicasa Behavioral Health Services

Many book titles are metaphorical, not literal. The title of Fighting For Survival by Hall of Fame boxer Christy Martin is both. She fought to preserve her professional life inside and outside the ring and astonishingly she fought for her actual life on one terrifying night. Both of those narratives are told in a compelling fashion. This book chronicles the exciting boxing part of her saga very well, but it transcends boxing to take us on a dramatic and often harrowing personal journey.

Al Bernstein, Hall of Fame boxing analyst

Fighting for Survival reads like a long confessional. It grips the reader from the very first page, and covers so many big themes-fame, celebrity, drugs, crime, the business of sports, incredible triumphs, heartbreaking losses and inconceivable loss, poverty, inequality, sexuality-that add up to make Christy Martin one of boxing's all-time intriguing characters. Readers who think they know Martin's story will soon realize they don't know half of it.

Greg Bishop, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated