9780062848291
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Goodbye, Sweet Girl audiobook

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Goodbye, Sweet Girl Audiobook Summary

In this brave and beautiful memoir, written with the raw honesty and devastating openness of The Glass Castle and The Liar’s Club, a woman chronicles how her marriage devolved from a love story into a shocking tale of abuse–examining the tenderness and violence entwined in the relationship, why she endured years of physical and emotional pain, and how she eventually broke free.

“You made me hit you in the face,” he said mournfully. “Now everyone is going to know.” “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Kelly Sundberg’s husband, Caleb, was a funny, warm, supportive man and a wonderful father to their little boy Reed. He was also vengeful and violent. But Sundberg did not know that when she fell in love, and for years told herself he would get better. It took a decade for her to ultimately accept that the partnership she desired could not work with such a broken man. In her remarkable book, she offers an intimate record of the joys and terrors that accompanied her long, difficult awakening, and presents a haunting, heartbreaking glimpse into why women remain too long in dangerous relationships.

To understand herself and her violent marriage, Sundberg looks to her childhood in Salmon, a small, isolated mountain community known as the most redneck town in Idaho. Like her marriage, Salmon is a place of deep contradictions, where Mormon ranchers and hippie back-to-landers live side-by-side; a place of magical beauty riven by secret brutality; a place that takes pride in its individualism and rugged self-sufficiency, yet is beholden to church and communal standards at all costs.

Mesmerizing and poetic, Goodbye, Sweet Girl is a harrowing, cautionary, and ultimately redemptive tale that brilliantly illuminates one woman’s transformation as she gradually rejects the painful reality of her violent life at the hands of the man who is supposed to cherish her, begins to accept responsibility for herself, and learns to believe that she deserves better.

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Goodbye, Sweet Girl Audiobook Narrator

Andi Arndt is the narrator of Goodbye, Sweet Girl audiobook that was written by Kelly Sundberg

Kelly Sundberg’s essays have appeared in Guernica, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Denver Quarterly, Slice, and others. Her essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset” was selected for inclusion in The Best American Essays 2015, and other essays have been listed as notables in the same series. She has a PhD in creative nonfiction from Ohio University and has been the recipient of fellowships or grants from Vermont Studio Center, A Room of Her Own Foundation, Dickinson House, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

About the Author(s) of Goodbye, Sweet Girl

Kelly Sundberg is the author of Goodbye, Sweet Girl

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Subjects

The publisher of the Goodbye, Sweet Girl is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Abuse, Domestic Partner Abuse, Family & Relationships

Additional info

The publisher of the Goodbye, Sweet Girl is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062848291.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Roxane

December 23, 2017

It is a hell of a thing to write about brutality and suffering with strength, grace, generosity and beauty. That’s precisely what Kelly Sundberg has done in her gripping memoir about marriage and domestic violence. Sundberg’s honesty is astonishing, how she laid so much of herself bare, how she did not demonize a man who deserves to be demonized. Instead, she offers a portrait of a broken man and a broken marriage and an abiding love, what it took to set herself free from it all. In shimmering, open hearted prose, she shows that it took everything. Also Caleb is trash. Fuck him.

Jonetta

November 16, 2018

Kelly Sundberg is a survivor of domestic violence. I’m starting here because it wasn’t always clear to the author that she was experiencing domestic abuse. Her story begins near the end and then reaches back into the past to provide context for her state of mind and how she came to be and stay in a violent relationship. Sundberg’s early life is much more complex than the simplistic lifestyle she describes. So much goes unsaid and broils underneath the surface within her family, network of friends, co-workers and, later, her in-laws. She’s yet another highly educated woman who you would think could not only recognize domestic abuse for what it was but also not tolerate it. But you must listen carefully as to how she eased into her situation and the complicity of so many others who were deaf to the subtleties of abuse. I much admire Sundberg for sharing her story and hope it was cathartic as she gains so little in return for being this open. She holds nothing back, including her frailties and vulnerabilities. While it was sometimes difficult to follow the timeline, I appreciated that she told the story as her life’s puzzle occurred to and came together for her. And, she nor the narrator doesn’t over-dramatize the abusive moments, taking more care to share what she was thinking and feeling in those moments. Hers is an important and relevant story as I don’t believe she was ever a victim. She never gave up on herself. Andi Arndt narrated the story perfectly. (I received a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review)

Rebecca

January 23, 2018

I have taught Sundberg's "It Will Look Like a Sunset" in my composition classes ever since the essay came out. Every semester, the essay enables important discussions about abuse, agency, and craft. Every semester, I have students who feel empowered enough to share their story. Every semester, I have students who say that this essay changed their way of thinking. This is the power of Sundberg's work: it is both beautifully written while simultaneously holding an important conversation about violence, abuse, power, and gender. In other words, it is art, and it has the power to change lives. Her masterful memoir Goodbye, Sweet Girl is no different. This memoir about abuse and survival moved me from the first chapter (I cried in a doctor's waiting room) and never let up. I woke up early every morning so I could finish the advance copy (the last few chapters are especially moving) and found myself crying for and cheering for Sundberg. What a beautiful work!

Eaton

March 19, 2018

Sometimes I want to let a book sit with me. I have to let it sink in deeply and observe how it feels in my tissues and bones before I write about it. First off, let me say that Kelly Sundberg is a courageous, talented, skilled and generous writer--it's why I've so admired her blog through the years. You are in good hands here, readers. Kelly Sundberg was married to a mercurial, abusive writer who was, at the beginning, ahead of her on the success scale. As that scale tipped, and envy got hold of him, Caleb deteriorated. He was determined to beat his own demons out on his wife's body. Kelly tried everything to please him, but nothing worked. Batterers choose to abuse, of course, and Caleb chose to abuse Kelly, over and over again. The couples' times of peaceable good relations were always followed by mounting tension, abuse, and a new cycle of remorse, apology and quiescence. Batterers aren't just monsters; most give years of intermittent rewards and bonding reinforcements, and those sweetnesses are so lovely that a person would stay put through almost anything to get to them again. The nice guy? He's the real guy. The other one is just some dude who came in off the street wearing the nice guy's face and body.Why wouldn't anyone want to believe that?We always ask ourselves, "Why does she stay?" but better we look at the womxn who left and ask, "How on earth did she manage to get out?" Let Kelly Sundberg tell you why in her well-written "Goodbye."

Jen

August 02, 2018

As most memoirs go, Goodbye Sweet Girl can be tough to read at times. Kelly Sundberg details her life, the beginning of her relationship, and their eventual descent into domestic abuse. The insight into why people choose to stay with their abusers and how they gather the courage to leave was raw and unfiltered. This was a real, honest take on domestic abuse. It was excellently written, yet I felt like the author was holding back a bit. It was methodical and somewhat clinical feeling, leaving me wanting more emotion. Reliving those events could not have been easy for her, kudos to the author for opening up and sharing her story with us. Doing so will help others that are stuck in the same situation and brings awareness to a subject most avoid.

Barbara

April 30, 2018

I am not giving this book 5 stars because of the writing. The writing style is simple but surprisingly open and candid. I gave this book 5 stars because of the courage it takes to open ones whole life up to be viewed, criticized and picked part by the hungry for blood masses. To bare ones soul and admit to the shame of abuse and lay it out there before the world to step on like a rug after being walked on in life takes a special soul.It takes a survivor who wants to reach out and shake others out of there belittled state of mind and say: Wake Up, you are important and don't deserve to be a whipping girl to boost some cowards ego. I didn't realize when I picked it up that it was the author's own tale, it hit me somewhere in chapter 3, something clicked, Hey isn't that the author's name? I loved the first chapter, and after that it slowly pulled me into her life. I was proud of her for taking a stand. It shows both the good and the bad of her relationships with her husband and his family, and her own extended family. Remember looks are deceiving. We never know the truth behind closed doors.

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