Dissonance

A Memoir

De: Megan Farison

Narrado por: Talon David

Thirty-three-year-old Megan has the life she’s always wanted: a loving husband, two beautiful children, a meaningful career as a church music director, and most recently, her dream home. Then, she’s confronted with the news that her former high school band director has been arrested for child sexual abuse. The police are asking for anyone with information about the teacher to come forward, and Megan has plenty. But choosing to help the police means facing her own past, and that won’t be easy since she doesn’t believe she was a victim of abuse. Torn between two realities, Megan must find a way to resolve the dissonance within her before it’s too late. She must expose the truth before it destroys her.

©2024 Megan Farison (P)2025 Megan Farison

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Dissonance is a courageous and riveting exploration of childhood sexual trauma, and how it reverberates into adulthood with devastating aftershocks." (Stephen Mills, author of Chosen: A Memoir of Stolen Boyhood)

"Bridging the divide between past and present, consent and exploitation, Megan Farison invites the reader into a powerful story of redemption and healing." (Dr. Ingrid Clayton, PhD, author of Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves—And How to Find Our Way Back)

A Must Read (or Listen!)

Powerfully written with a strong narrative voice that pulls the listener right in. Farison shares her personal story with incredible detail, courage, and vulnerability, and quickly asserted herself as a leading voice on the topic with this book. She also uses a structure that masterfully blends the past with the present which further serves to keep the listener hooked. A must read (or listen!).l

The passionate writing.

Megan Farison’s memoir, Dissonance, is a strikingly honest and emotionally resonant work that explores the tension between lived experience and inner truth with remarkable clarity and courage. From the opening pages, Megan establishes a voice that is both intimate and direct, inviting readers into a deeply personal journey marked by vulnerability, reflection, and insight. What makes Dissonance stand out is its emotional precision. Megan doesn’t simply recount events, she interrogates them. Each chapter peels back another layer of perception, identity, and meaning allowing readers to witness not just what happened, but how it felt and how it changed her. Her writing is accessible yet lyrical, grounded yet reflective.

The memoir speaks powerfully to anyone who has wrestled with inner conflict, self-definition, or the gap between external expectations and internal reality of child sexual abuse and coercion. Megan captures the subtle psychological “noise” of dissonance, the contradictions we carry, and transforms it into a coherent, meaningful narrative that’s purpose is to help others who may have had the same or similar experiences.

Ultimately, Dissonance is more than a personal story; it’s a mirror for readers navigating their own trauma and abuse. It is brave, thoughtful, and deeply human, the kind of memoir that lingers long after the final page.

Heart wrenching

I initially read this book because the antagonist in question, Christopher Blackmer, was a former colleague of mine, and someone I had considered to be a friend. When his arrest in Florida hit the news, much of my personal and professional social circle was in shock.

When I read the book in print, I devoured it in one sitting. I felt I was frozen in my chair and had to stay with the author to the very end. To read of anyone taking advantage of children in this way is abhorrent; for it to be someone I had thought I knew, unfathomable. I couldn’t wrap my head around how much I never saw, didn’t know and therefore didn’t prevent interactions with potential victims.

When I listened to the audiobook, I thought it might be easier than the first time around because I knew the story.

I was wrong.

In print reading, I think we have a bit more control in protecting ourselves from discomfort…reading quickly through parts that upset us, not always noticing all the distinctions in the structure of the writing. In an audiobook, and this one in particular, we don’t have that cushion.

In this format, it becomes blindingly obvious that the flashback chapters are the words and feelings of a CHILD. Not an adult telling the story of her memories, colored by the wisdom and life experience the author has gained in the intervening years, but the raw, naked thoughts of an adolescent with all the romantic notions and dramatic ideals that come with that developmental stage. Feeling this from the perspective of a kid who got what she thought she wanted from someone who already had an outsized amount of influence on her thoughts, feelings, dreams, and sense of self-worth, it’s no wonder she imprinted on him so strongly. And as long as she was in the midst of it, she couldn’t be expected to see it for what it was.

This is a truly compelling memoir. Author Megan Farison has laid herself completely bare in her journey toward healing, and as an effort to increase awareness amongst the adults who make their best efforts to protect children. In this time of the Epstein Files and online social lives, she is reminding us that we MUST hold predators accountable for the harm their actions cause. We cannot keep quiet.