Dysfunctional Childhood

This is my inspirational true story of childhood sexual abuse that I endured. The abuse was a secret, even to me, due to the fact that all the painful images were locked up in my subconscious for close to 37 years.

Were you abused as a child? Gary was. He was born in a small town in rural South Carolina to alcoholic parents who abused and neglected him. For the first twenty years of his life, he was trapped in a world of anxiety, fear, and self-loathing. Tormented daily at home and bullied at school, he was the ideal candidate to pass along the same abuse to his children. . . or worse. Instead of perpetuating the sadistic behavior, he decided it was enough. It would stop here, with him. Gary’s story, heartbreaking and gut-wrenching though it may be, is, above all, uplifting and inspiring. Overcoming...

THE GIRL THAT NO ONE CLAIMED is the true story of a child everyone saw but no one truly protected. As a little girl, Lena learned early how to disappear in plain sight. Behind the closed doors of a small-town home, she faced the kind of fear most people only see on the news—violence, manipulation, and adults who cared more about protecting themselves than protecting her. When she finally spoke up, the system that promised safety gave her something else instead: disbelief, blame, and a courtroom that broke her all over again. This memoir follows her life before and after the day the state ...

9-year-old Nichole and her parents are evicted from their home because both of her parents are addicted to heroin. With nowhere left to turn, they are now homeless. In order to survive they must dig through dumpsters, beg, and steal. While living on the streets, Nichole struggles to understand why people treat them differently.

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist for the Man Booker Prize A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century The New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this award-winning novel...

"It’s a dark story that forced me to think more expansively about what constitutes a cult." —The New York Times' Ernesto Londoño "Although this is Mestyanek Young’s first time narrating, listeners will appreciate hearing this deeply personal story told by the author herself. Share with...

“Wickedly funny and always movingly illuminating, thanks to kick-ass storytelling and a poet's ear.” –Oprah.com The New York Times bestselling, hilarious tale of Mary Karr’s hardscrabble Texas childhood that Oprah.com calls the best memoir of a generation. The Liars’ Club took the...

Was your mother preoccupied, distant, or even demeaning? Have you struggled with relationships - or with your own self-worth? Often, the grown children of emotionally absent mothers can't quite put a finger on what's missing from their lives. The children of abusive mothers, by contrast, may recognize the abuse - but overlook its lasting, harmful effects. Psychotherapist Jasmin Lee Cori has helped thousands of men and women heal the hidden wounds left by every kind of undermothering.

Author Talia Kendrix awakens an array of emotions with The House on Fairview, stirring up a hunger for our most basic need… the need to survive. We are immediately swept into young Talia’s life as she gives us the riveting details from her point of view, beginning with her parents’ divorce and progressing through a series of horrific events that are relatable and all too common. Used and abused in every way, Talia repeatedly gets knocked down by the harsh realities of life as she learns what it means to fight for hers. She grows up confused and rebellious, desperately yearning to be ...

The unforgettable story of a young woman's odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes on her journey to redemption. Astrid is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who wields her luminous beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships her...

Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris! In Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview-a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A...

What if you’re the lucky one? At sixty-five years old, William Aperance was proud of the life he’d built: a comfortable home in upstate New York, a successful career managing country clubs, and, most importantly, a happy family. Despite growing up in poverty and neglect, with a sense that he never quite belonged, William and his wife, Kim, had created a loving home for their three children. But with retirement on the horizon, one Christmas gift challenged everything. The results from the DNA kit under the tree rocked the foundations of his identity, and everything he thought he knew ...

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but...

Did you grow up feeling unseen, unheard, or unimportant in your own home? Maybe your parents were emotionally distant, overly critical, or made you feel like your needs were a burden. Perhaps you learned early on to hide your feelings, take on adult responsibilities as a child, or strive for perfection just to feel loved and accepted. These experiences don’t stay in the past—they often follow us into adulthood, shaping how we see ourselves and relate to others. But here’s the good news: your past doesn’t have to define your future. In I Didn’t Choose to Be Born, certified early ...

You are not broken. You are simply a person who learned to survive. You live as if something bad is always about to happen. You move through your days carrying a heavy, invisible weight, a constant, underlying sense that you must guard yourself, perform, or hide just to be safe. To the outside world, you might seem fine. You might even have high functioning anxiety, appearing competent and successful. But inside, you feel like you are performing a role rather than living a life, constantly managing the internal noise of a nervous system that refuses to rest. This is not a personality flaw. ...

One of Library Journal’s Best Books of 2025 A fresh, no-nonsense parenting guide that shows you how to become a great parent (even if you didn’t have one yourself). Many of us didn’t have a perfect childhood. But it’s never too late (or too early!) to transform into the parent you were...

In a small North Carolina mountain town, three fifth graders from fractured families are thrown together for a class project. Marcus, a shy piano prodigy struggling under the weight of his mother’s expectations and his father’s musical legacy, finds an unlikely ally in Shell, the resilient daughter of a drug-addicted mother who is just beginning a shaky road to recovery. Alongside them is Squeeze, the sheriff’s neglected son whose bullying hides a desperate need for attention. But when Shell’s mother returns from rehab with a youth pastor who seems to promise stability, the fragile ...

Ezra Hamilton hasn't felt the warm spurt of blood flow through his fingers or the indescribable feeling of pushing a knife deep into someone's flesh in a long time. Too long. He's been watching a man stalk women, curious as to what he's doing with them. Ezra's never encountered someone with similar dark tendencies before, and what starts off as genuine curiosity turns into much more when Kaspian turns the tables on him. As their chemistry builds, so does the mistrust. They both know they can't trust a killer, but their inner demons call to each other anyway.

Were you raised by people who couldn’t raise themselves? Did you grow up in a house where “normal” meant walking on eggshells, ignoring the obvious, or pretending you were fine when you were falling apart? Same here. Adult Children Decoded is not your standard trauma recovery guide. It’s the gut-level honest, occasionally hilarious, and fully human companion for anyone raised in alcoholic, emotionally neglectful, or dysfunctional homes. It’s here to help you stop surviving and start living—without needing a PhD, a perfect family, or permission. This book will help you: Set ...

From the creator and star of Florida Girls comes a hilarious and profound memoir about family, happiness, and really aggressive acne. Despite having dirty-blonde hair and fair skin, Laura Chinn is mixed-race: the daughter of a Black father and a white mother, which on its own makes for some...