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    Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival
    Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival
    Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival
    Audiobook6 hours

    Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival

    Written by Kelly Sundberg

    Narrated by Andi Arndt

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJun 5, 2018
    ISBN9780062848291
    Author

    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.

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    Reviews for Goodbye, Sweet Girl

    4/5

    71 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Realizing how her own husband made her apologizing and made her feel deserving his own violence is shocking and at the same time so common. It’s a sad story because it leads you to realize the web had been slowly and carefully laid, such as when he even fools the therapist they are going to. It’s also an empowering story because when she constantly chooses him over herself and her own safety, when you feel like you can’t take it anymore, something clicks and she finally fights for herself. Even harder is the fact that some of the people who should trust her don’t but she, finally and once more, stands up for herself. This is a very good book, hunting, well written. I went through it in less than two days, it really does take you in. She’s not stronger because he abused her violently, psychologically and physically, and she didn’t break, she’s a better woman because she decided to look at reality in the eyes and leave.
      Chapeau to this woman who walked away and has the guts to let her story be known to many. Thank you Kelly, may your strength pass on to many!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Recommended by a friend, and I would in turn recommend it to pretty much anyone. Sundberg is so open and honest about her relationship history, her marriage, and being a mother. Her prose is beautiful and emotional and touching. Many sections had me nodding in agreement, others had me biting my nails, and others had me weeping. A must-read.
    • 3/5
      The author likes to repeat, but it becomes too much, monotonous and annoying - particularly towards the end.
      Still, appreciate how difficult it would be to tell this story and a good insight into domestic abuse
    • 5/5
      It was a great listen. At times it just ran on and on with the same theme and that's about the worst I can say. Still a good listen.
    • 4/5
      After she gets pregnant, author Kelly Sundberg marries Caleb, the father of her baby. She soon discovers that she barely knows him. Caleb has a certain amount of little-boy charm, but he also has a dark side. Sometimes he's loving, other times he's violent. She tries to excuse or rationalize his frequent rages, but after a series of harrowing incidents, his abuse becomes too much for her to bear. She leaves him.As a survivor of domestic abuse, Ms. Sundberg has a disturbing story to tell, and she does so in a nonlinear fashion. Small details help the reader understand why she stayed as long as she did: the reader hears multiple times about how well Ms. Sundberg and her husband fit together while embracing, for example. There’s also a lot about the childhood insecurities that made Ms. Sundberg feel as though she deserved abuse. At times the narrative feels jumbled, but everything becomes clearer in the final chapters.I imagine this book may be helpful for other domestic abuse survivors, and for those looking for the courage to leave violent relationships.
    • 4/5
      Domestic violence is a tricky thing. While he is hitting you or shoving or slapping, leaving seems to be the obvious answer. But it’s all of the inbetween that makes it confusing. When he’s apologetic and calm. Maybe I shouldn’t have made him mad. Maybe I shouldn’t have done what he doesn’t want me to do. Maybe if I just don’t make him mad, he won’t do it again. Maybe that was the last time. Except it rarely is the last time and it escalates. And they are too afraid to leave. What will he do when he finds me?Kelly’s story is a very real account of one woman’s journey. What started out as a “normal” relationship turned dark and bit by bit Caleb got more violent. I loved the author’s way of telling a story. I didn’t love how it hopped around all over the place interrupting the flow of the story. Still a very good read from a courageous author who was able to break away.
    • 4/5
      I really appreciate Kelly Sundberg for having the courage to share her story. Maybe others who find themselves in this type of situation or in the beginning or one will find the strength to get out. I am fortunate that I am in a loving marriage. Although, my sister has not been as luckily. She has been in several abusive relationships. One of the relationships she was warned in the beginning. The other ones, the guys put on a good front before their true colors were revealed. I saw Kelly grow stronger the more I read. I am glad that she had others surrounding here to help support her. Kelly writes a real memoir type book. I felt for Kelly and experienced the emotions with her as she went from thinking she had found a great guy to emotional abuse to standing as a fighter. Readers who like reading nonfiction books or who can relate or know someone will want to check this book out. Kelly may be saying "Goodbye, sweet Girl" but I say "Hello, Sunshine".