Girl, Groomed by Carol Odell, LICSW

Anyone who has been rode hard and put away wet by the patriarchy will resonate with Carol Odell’s page-turner now available on preorder from bookshop.org.

Never a discrete or singular destination, Personal Empowerment and Liberation occupies a vast territory. Odell’s book draws a map to use in identifying the peaks and valleys that we who tour the area have either already seen or are upcoming in our journey. 

Carol’s story of coming to terms in adulthood with the impacts of violent actions silently exacted against her in childhood is a workhorse of validation to anyone who has doubted their experience of abuse and is working to re-assemble themselves whole in the necessary self-splintering that survival required. The author offers hope for the beauty of the mosaics we make with the pieces we picked up.

I long for a world where we no longer need to call authors like Odell “brave.” And until that day, it is the telling of these stories, and in all of us joining the chorus, that works to extinguish the gaslight of oppression.