SURVIVING: Why We Stay and How We Leave
Abusive Relationships

“"So much courage and a deep understanding of the complex dynamics of abuse.”

- Leslie Morgan Steiner, NYT Bestselling author of Crazy Love

Winner of the 2023 National Indie Excellence Award in African American Nonfiction

Silver Winner of the 2023 Nautilus Book Award

Library Journal Self-Help Bestseller

“Gooden’s book is raw, especially when she’s writing about her complicated feelings towards her ex-husband, but also careful and conscientious. She draws on research and prevailing professional knowledge to analyze and reflect on her thinking process at the time of her abuse and in its aftermath. She also centers her experience as a Black woman, highlighting the struggles unique to survivors with intersecting identities and providing a perspective often left out of the domestic-violence conversation.”

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SURVIVING is a memoir about relationship violence. But at its core, it is a book about reinvention.

With unflinching vulnerability, Gooden outlines in painstaking detail why she stayed and what she had to do to walk away. She offers strategies for overcoming the barriers survivors often face, such as money, housing, overcritical social circles, or, most powerfully: love.

Searing, hope-filled, and uniquely compassionate when it comes to the heartbreak of still loving one’s abuser, Gooden shares how she transformed and extended this love outward, using her experiences to help others uncover the beauty of surviving.