Here are 100 books that Undoing Jane Doe fans have personally recommended if you like
Undoing Jane Doe.
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I resonate with these stories; I feel a kinship with authors of books about teen sexual abuse. My heart breaks for another innocent young person, and I am also inspired by the different ways we find healing and peace. I am so grateful for my healing journey that I want to share what helped me with others who are looking for greater peace with their struggles and scars. I am proud to join the ranks of these authors because we all shine a spotlight on the harm done by this too-common abuse of the trust and innocence of teenage girls.
I like this book because it takes on the troubling theme of consent in the case where one person is an adolescent and the other a significantly older adult. I think in all cases of this power dynamic, the confusion a young person feels when she is eager for the love and attention of the older man blurs the meaning of consent for her.I know it did for me.
Yet the truth is a young teenager isn’t capable of consent; she is unaware of the price she’ll pay for what seems like love but is actually abuse. When the perpetrator is a well-liked or respected leader, like a coach or teacher, the confusion is worse because we are all led to believe this is a trustworthy person.
The devastating and powerful memoir from a French publisher who was abused by a famous writer from the age of thirteen
'Dazzling' New York Times
'A gut-punch of a memoir with prose that cuts like a knife' Kate Elizabeth Russell, author of My Dark Vanessa
Thirty years ago, Vanessa Springora was the teenage muse of one of France's most celebrated writers, a footnote in the narrative of an influential man. At the end of 2019, as women around the world began to speak out, Springora, now in her forties and the director of one of France's leading publishing houses, decided…
I resonate with these stories; I feel a kinship with authors of books about teen sexual abuse. My heart breaks for another innocent young person, and I am also inspired by the different ways we find healing and peace. I am so grateful for my healing journey that I want to share what helped me with others who are looking for greater peace with their struggles and scars. I am proud to join the ranks of these authors because we all shine a spotlight on the harm done by this too-common abuse of the trust and innocence of teenage girls.
I resonated with this memoir of teen grooming because I saw myself in it and I felt less alone, like I had found a kindred spirit. Many details of our stories are different, but the core wounding from being taken advantage of by an older more powerful man felt the same.
The author and I both experienced the thrill of being chosen and the deep sadness resulting from this kind of betrayal, and we both found a way to heal, even though the scars remain.
AS FEATURED IN THE HULU DOCUMENTARY KEEP THIS BETWEEN US
A dark relationship evolves between a high schooler and her English teacher in this breathtakingly powerful memoir about a young woman who must learn to rewrite her own story.
“Have you ever read Lolita?”
So begins seventeen-year-old Alisson’s metamorphosis from student to lover and then victim. A lonely and vulnerable high school senior, Alisson finds solace only in her writing—and in a young, charismatic English teacher, Mr. North.
Mr. North gives Alisson a copy of Lolita to read, telling her it is a beautiful story about love. The book soon…
I resonate with these stories; I feel a kinship with authors of books about teen sexual abuse. My heart breaks for another innocent young person, and I am also inspired by the different ways we find healing and peace. I am so grateful for my healing journey that I want to share what helped me with others who are looking for greater peace with their struggles and scars. I am proud to join the ranks of these authors because we all shine a spotlight on the harm done by this too-common abuse of the trust and innocence of teenage girls.
In this memoir, we meet Kim as a teen athlete and an Olympic-bound swimmer. The book shows the intense training environment of young athletes of this caliber experience, and as I read it, I was filled with both admiration and a deep uneasiness.
She’s so vulnerable to her esteemed coach, as I was to my teacher. Swimming was her life, and her coach held her future in his hands. When the inevitable grooming and seduction began, my heart sank further in outrage and sorrow. Like me, Kim finds her way out, but as with all young girls groomed and betrayed, it is not easy.
In 1970s Cincinnati, Kim's overwhelmed, financially stressed parents dragged her and her four younger siblings into swimming-starting with a nearby motel pool-as a way to keep them occupied and out of their way. When Kim was eleven, they began leaving the kids at home with a sitter while they traveled the Midwest, where they sold imported wooden ornaments from their motorhome. But when Kim's six-year-old brother crashed his new Cheater Slick bike and the babysitter deserted the children, what started as an accident became a pattern: Mom and Dad leaving for weeks at a time and the kids wrestling with…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I resonate with these stories; I feel a kinship with authors of books about teen sexual abuse. My heart breaks for another innocent young person, and I am also inspired by the different ways we find healing and peace. I am so grateful for my healing journey that I want to share what helped me with others who are looking for greater peace with their struggles and scars. I am proud to join the ranks of these authors because we all shine a spotlight on the harm done by this too-common abuse of the trust and innocence of teenage girls.
Like me, Wendy’s parents weren’t paying close enough attention to her during her formative teenage years. This makes us vulnerable and, therefore, good targets for teachers or coaches to prey upon our availability and eagerness to be seen. This combination of parental absence and the betrayal of innocence and trust by an adult ‘friend’ who seduces us into a sexual relationship has a huge impact on our later years.
In Wendy’s case, their shared love of writing makes their relationship more complex. In my case, the 1970s was a time of ‘free love’ and sexual liberation, which added further confusion to my limited understanding of right and wrong.
Wendy C. Ortiz was an only child and a bookish, insecure girl living with alcoholic parents in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Her relationship with a charming and deeply flawed private school teacher 15 years her senior appeared to give her the kind of power teenagers wish for, regardless of consequences. Her teacher - now a registered sex offender - continually encouraged her passion for writing while making her promise she was not leaving any written record about their dangerous sexual relationship. This conflicted relationship with her teacher may have been…
I spent 7 years in a commercial cult. I was indoctrinated into, rose to the top of, and finally escaped from a multilevel marketing company. When I started my exit, I wondered how I had become so brainwashed, which led me to do research into coercive control. I started to understand that different types of authoritarian control; behavior, information, thought, and emotional, drove me further into the cult and away from my outside friends and family. I read as many cult books and watched as many documentaries as I could find, and became fascinated with uncovering why people find themselves in the same situation I was in.
Admittedly, I didn't know much about the Amish culture religion prior to reading this book, other than what I saw in Pennsylvania when I lived there, but I was always curious. After reading this book, I started to question the idea of ‘religious freedom’ in our country, that can so shield people who are abusing their freedom by exploiting women and children.
Religion in its worst manifestation can be so damaging, which is so well explained in this book.
Surviving Severe Child Abuse, Sexual Assault and Leaving the Amish Church
In May 2022 Misty Griffin released #invisible, a petition calling on congress to take action and help abused children in religious communities. It is currently gaining momentum and national media attention.
Watch Sins of the Amish on Peacock #1 Best Seller in Cults & Demonism, Parenting & Relationships, Notable People, Religious, Survival, Sexual Assault, and Biographies & Memoirs
A gripping story that takes you on the journey of a child abuse and sexual assault survivor turned activist. (Photo gallery included).
True story of child abuse. When Misty Griffin was…
Jamilla Counts born in Chicago during 1973 and raised in Memphis, Tennessee where she currently resides now. Graduated from Pulaski Technical college in Arkansas. Moving on to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock presuing a Bachelor's Degree in Social work. I'm featured in a book released by Tiffany Ludwig in the Rutgers University Press; Fifth or Later Edition (November 30, 2007) called Trappings: Stories of Women, Power, and Clothing, I'm a single parent of two daughters and one grandchild.
This book written by Ellen Middleton is based on a true story of a little girl who grows up in adulthood to face motherhood, grief, rape, sexuality issues, and mental health.
It gives you this sense of right and wrong. She has a good sense of humour at the same time.
She finds the ability to love no matter what pain endured at the hands of others. Being let down by those who are supposed to love and care for you is heartbreaking.
This book is based on a true story. It highlights the worst child abuse while the author maintains a strong sense of right and wrong, a good sense of humour, and the ability to love no matter what pain she is forced to endure at the hands of others.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…
As a quiet and very shy child, I found myself sitting alone reading books rather than playing with other kids. My love for reading at the time was restricted to children’s books like The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe or Roald Dhal stories until I upgraded to Enid Blyton Books and Mills & Boon romances as a teen. It wasn’t until I reached my twenties when I actually found the genre I loved. It was through my love of these stories I came to realise I didn’t have to hide anymore, and my love for these stories planted a small seed in my mind that I would have the courage to write my own.
Once I read two books in this genre I was hooked, hooked on finding out more, hooked on realising there were people in the world like me that had been through the worst within their childhood. It was my little secret way of facing my own demons knowing I wasn’t alone. I lived in fear of my truth, yet Constance tells her truth of physical and emotional abuse as well as living through a loveless childhood flawlessly. I couldn’t put it down and read it in three days.
Constance's mother systematically abused her daughter, both physically and emotionally, throughout her childhood. Regularly beaten and starved, the girl was so desperate she took herself off to Social Services and tried to get taken into care. When that failed, she swallowed bleach 'because it kills all known germs and my mother always told me I was a germ'. When Constance was thirteen, her mother simply moved out, leaving her daughter to fend for herself: there was no gas, no electricity and no food.
But somehow Constance found the courage to survive her terrible start in life. This is her heartrending…
I am first generation American - my mother is from Ireland and my father is from Germany. I’ve always had an interest in my heritage and developed a passion for genealogy. My curiosity led me to researching Industrial Schools and Mother Baby Homes in Ireland. I’ve read many books about these institutions and also wrote a book of my own based on stories of former residents of St. Joseph’s Industrial School in Ballinasloe, Galway.
Fear of the Collar is Patrick Touher’s personal account of his experience in the Artane Industrial School. Artane was the largest Industrial School in Ireland and operated from 1870 – 1969.
At times Artane housed nearly 1,000 boys and was known to be self-sufficient – with the “inmates” making their own clothes, shoes, and the boys produced and grew their own food.
Touher takes the reader through the daily military-like regiment and discipline imposed upon young boys being cared for by the Christian Brothers. His story will evoke an array of feelings. It is important to read the epilogue as you will be in awe of the man Patrick Touher has become despite the harshness of his childhood.
Sent to an Industrial School in Dublin at the age of seven, Patrick Touher was forced into a tough regime of education and training, prayer and punishment, strict discipline and fearful nights. No allowances were made for emotion, sentiment or boyhood worries, and anyone who disturbed the routine was severely punished. Artane demanded absolute obedience, absolute submission; Patrick's was an education in cruelty and fear.
Patrick Touher spent eight long years in Artane Industrial School. Run by the Christian Brothers, the school has become synonymous with the widespread abuse of children in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s which is…
I’ve led a storied life. One of six children, I married and divorced before the age of 20 and moved from Santa Cruz, California to New York City in my early 30s. I carved out my career as a writer while scraping by on government assistance as a single mom. They say write what you know, and I did just that. My first novel, Garden of Lies, became a New York Times bestseller, skyrocketing me from poverty to financial security. I’ve since gone on to publish 20 novels about family relationships, romantic love, and reversals of fortune. With more to come!
You know a book is really good when you reread it. I read this one twice. When 16-year-old Ruby is sent to live with her married older sister Cora after their mother vanishes, she doesn’t know what to expect. She’s neither seen nor heard from Cora since Cora went away to college years earlier. As they fumble their way toward becoming reacquainted, the two sisters discover they’re more alike than they realized. While Ruby is falling for the boy next door, she’s learning to love and depend on the sister she didn’t know. This is a book you’ll want to recommend to your sister or sisters if you have one or more. I did, and my sister Karen loved it too.
Ruby Cooper likes to expect the worst. That way, she's never disappointed.
Abandoned by her mother and forced to leave the house she calls home, Ruby is facing too many changes. Her lonely world has been transformed into a life of luxury by her long lost sister, but all Ruby wants to do is leave - she can make it on her own. Even Nate, the gorgeous boy-next-door can't seem to change her mind. Will Ruby realize first impressions don't always count? And that sometimes, people can surprise you, so it's ok to let the closest ones in . .…
On the run from her abusive husband, Kyra Smith hits the road. Destination unknown. With a dog she rescued in tow, she lands in the peaceful California mountain town of Gold Creek and is immediately befriended by an openhearted group of women who call themselves the Tattooed Ladies. They’re there…
When I was four and a half years old, I found my mother passed out on her bedroom floor. She had overdosed—shortly after giving birth to my baby brother, and she went on to spend six months in a psychiatric hospital. While she was away, I remember sitting in the backseat of our car with my brother as my father drove us to the store when our car collided head-on with another vehicle. In the months that followed, I became parentless for a period that seemed like years. That experience set the stage for my lifelong interest in the impacts of childhood trauma. As a therapist, it also sparked my passion for healing others.
I love this book as the author, Jonice Webb, describes childhood neglect in depth. When I teach clients that neglect is a form of childhood trauma, difficult to detect, like carbon monoxide, I see light bulbs go off in their heads.
Webb describes in detail the 12 different types of childhood neglect that have a devasting impact on their lives today and how to heal them.
This informative guide helps you identify and heal from childhood emotional neglect so you can be more connected and emotionally present in your life.
Do you sometimes feel like you're just going through the motions in life? Do you often act like you're fine when you secretly feel lonely and disconnected? Perhaps you have a good life and yet somehow it's not enough to make you happy. Or perhaps you drink too much, eat too much, or risk too much in an attempt to feel something good. If so, you are not alone-and you may be suffering from emotional neglect.…
