5 stars beautiful story and tale of trauma and addiction and finding the way out
How does 1 life play out how easy is it for the substance to dull the pain and forget

"Blackout Girl" is a true roller coaster of a ride! it is amazing that the author, Jennifer Storm, is still alive to tell her story. But I am forever grateful that she is.

Not only will this memoir help other victims of trauma and addiction, it will help parents and victim advocates. A lot of the messages contained in this book go far beyond traditional 12 step programs. Sure, those help you get sober, but they don’t dig into the severe psychological impact that trauma has on a person.

I've read many "quit lit" books in my nearly four years of sobriety. And this one is memorable! For a while, I felt Jennifer would never get sober. It’s amazing how much she can remember from her past, despite all the drinking and drugging she did. It's not only raw and honest (she holds nothing back), but it covers so much ground.

“Blackout Girl” is now being republished more than a decade after its first launch. It offers a bright, shining light into huge topics. Some of the biggies include: sexual trauma, rape, self-loathing, shame, suicide, theft, death and abandonment. The relaunch is especially poignant now since the #MeToo movement has shined a light on the connection between alcohol and sexual abuse. (Um, hello. No matter the level of inebriation, it is NOT OKAY to be violated in any way, shape or form).

Throughout Jennifer's teens into young adulthood, we witness a TON of trauma. And walk through all the ways she detaches from her fear and pain. "If something even remotely struck me as scary or unsafe, I simply detached. I detached out of total lack of self."

Even though alcohol was her drug of choice, she also used and abused people (love), cocaine, crack and pot. "I couldn't find happiness on my own, so a chemically generated high that made me smile was just fine with me. It made me forget the pain, the memories, the hidden bad things that lingered, and it just let me laugh. Except, of course, for the times that it didn't."

Anything that could help her check out or give her an adrenaline rush (e.g., skipping school and shoplifting), helped her avoid her true feelings. "I couldn't be in my own skin and sober long enough to sustain a full day."

When talking about her suicide attempt, she wrote: "He knows I am a mess; he had seen the cuts on my arms, the ones I haphazardly attempt to cover Because while I don't want people to know that I do at night to quiet the pain, I desperately need someone, anyone to pay attention to me, to understand on some level the darkness that has taken up residency in my soul. ... It wasn't that I really wanted to die; I just didn't have the first clue how to live with these feelings inside me?"

Gratefully, this memoir ends well. And Jen realizes that her secrets are what is making her sick. "In order to become a better person, to obtain this 'recovery' that people talked about, I had to rid myself of my past."

Toward the book's end, Jennifer finds a recovery program voluntarily. That's when she realizes she had to free herself from her baggage. "It wasn't about the drink or the drug; it was about the reasons behind them. It was the shame and guilt that made us want to drink and drug in the first place..." The hardest part is realizing she's powerless and needs to finally come to terms with her feelings and emotions.

This was a tough, eye opening read. Jennifer Storm showed us just how easily a young person who experiences trauma, or indeed any young person, can slide down the slippery slope of self-destruction. Children and teens, while trying to navigate this world, need constant care and attention and in incident like a rape can cause devastating and life long traumatic changes to the life of a child. My heart went out to 12 year old Jennifer. Her memoir is really important. It is well written and engrossing yet I had to stop reading on occasion such was the heartbreak I felt for her. It's a must read certainly for parents so that signs are not ignored and children are protected as much as we possibly can.

Typically, I don’t feel comfortable rating nonfiction or memoirs, but this I felt necessary. Overall, the story told was important, hard, triggering, and serious. The topics discussed in here are of great interest to me. But it was a tough read, not necessarily because of the content (which is very intense on all levels), but because of the writing. It was very all over the place and confusing at times. Things were often repeated multiple times. Some things felt like they were just thrown in there out of nowhere. Everything felt very convoluted. At the end of the day though, this was an important story and can be extremely helpful for those who may read it. As someone who has interest in mental health, trauma, and addiction, this gave me a lot of information. It taught me quite a bit of new things.

Oh wow. That's how I would describe this book in two words. There's a lot to unpack. It's gritty, and raw, and real, and almost too real. All together at once. Blackout Girl is a journey that so many people have taken, but I feel that few have recovered from. Storm grabs all of by the hair and yanks us into her story. You feel her pain, her sadness. You want to her to get better, but you understand when she doesn't. Several times, I felt like this story was too true and too much to handle. But Storm lived this. It was her life and as hard as it was to read, that's sort of the point.


Life isn't easy and neither was this book. But in a good way. This is probably one of the best ones I've read this year. It's the type of book that makes your throat raw from sadness.


But it gets better. I promise.


Blackout Girl comes out 8.11.2020.


5/5 Stars

There's not much new to unpack here, but that, I believe, is the charm of quit lit. This is a pretty standard tale of white suburban female struggles with sexuality and substance abuse, with a redemptive ending.

Trigger warnings with this book however it was phenomenal! It was brutally honest and delved into the tie between trauma and addiction.

I could relate to the story in many ways as far as the trauma. He author is so brave to tell her story.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who had struggled through trauma as long as it isn’t too triggering. It was such an inspirational story!

This update of Blackout Girl by Jennifer Storm is accessible to a wide audience and includes important updates since first being published. While it's an easy read, the subject matter is anything but, so I would recommend it to women who are comfortable reading details of assault and addiction.

I want to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and author Jennifer Storm for providing me with an ARC of this novel!

Blackout Girl is a beautiful and heartbreaking story about addiction and sexual assault. Storm's story is harrowing but brings some very dark subjects to light. These were some of my favorite parts of the novel. I love that the author did not shy away from these hard topics. This was an enthralling read that I could appreciate as a survivor of sexual assault.

Thank you again to those named above for the opportunity to read and review this novel!

Wow! This was such a powerful and emotional read! While this a brutally honest memoir of Jennifer Storms experience with trauma, rape, and addiction, it actually read much like a book of fiction because it flowed so well. I don’t often read memoirs because I find that they jump around a lot, but I had no trouble following along in this book; it was very well written.

I can’t even begin to imagine how painful it was for Jennifer to revisit her past while writing this, but after everything she has been through and seeing how far she has come, I am so proud of her. She is the embodiment of strength and perseverance. I’m even more amazed that having gone through what she has, she was able to in turn advocate for other victims and help professionals understand the connections between traumatic events and the subsequent behaviors victims experience so that victims can receive the proper intervention and treatment. I am truly amazed by Jennifer and thankful she has helped so many people through her work and her words.

I also love the meaning behind her tattoo. It’s both beautiful and inspiring.

This is an absolute must read!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3382271813