At the tender and problematic ages of 16 and 17, Laura Eckert twice found herself as a patient at an abortion clinic, after her parents had discovered that she was pregnant. Addicted to sex and an overindulging in alcohol while maintaining an unhealthy desire for isolation and coping with deep depression, Laura didn’t understand the link between her problems until she was in her thirties, when she was finally able to accept them for what they were. Then, her pursuit of redemption for what she did became relentless, as she tackled the dark humiliation she had endured, eventually finding peace within a loving family of her own.
Now, in her book, Just Another Girl’s Story, Laura relives those traumatic teenage experiences in an honest and genuine teen autobiography that many will find shocking, harrowing and provocative, and yet implores sympathy and holds the reader spellbound at the same time. Read about her plight and her path to finding the peace and healing that she craved, as she tackles controversial topics of teen abortion, teen pregnancy, teen drinking and alcoholism and sex addiction.
Perhaps you will be inspired to find your own peace within Laura’s story.
Memoires remain ever popular, especially those about breaking the bonds of an addiction, but few truly connect with their readers and the few that do so tend to be those that are brutally honest. Just Another Girl's Story: Abortion and Addiction Recovery and Finding Redemption certainly falls into the latter category with Eckert pulling no punches as she delivers a moving and determined account of recovery and personal transformation. Compelling and often heart-breaking, it’s a difficult genre in which to write and without a willingness to veer away from safe ground it is often hard to reach readers on an emotional level and yet this is what Eckert does as she shares the most personal and painful parts of her life.
The calling of a memoirist can be daunting and Eckert’s memoir isn’t for the feint hearted. It is elegiac and searching as she reflects on her own sense of drift and isolation and she has a gift for writing through which she conveys a relentless sense immediacy.
Highly introspective and never self-indulgent it makes for a very powerful read and one that is highly recommended.
5 Stars
I loved Laura’s story. It was inspiring and touching to know that I am not alone in my thoughts or feelings on certain situations. It was incredible to see everything that she went through and how far she has come. I would definitely suggest this book to friends and family especially the ones that may have ended up in similar situations, to let them know that they are not alone and that life can go on and life is what you make it. A beautiful story!
This is the autobiographical chronicle of one person's difficult journey through life.
Growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Laura was the sort of child who lived for pranks and practical jokes in Catholic school. Dad walked out on the family when Laura was very young. Mom eventually remarried, and just before Laura was about to start high school, announced that the family was moving to a small town 40 miles away.
Laura found herself living the life of an addict. Her addiction was not to drugs or alcohol. She was addicted to sex, with Shawn, her 2-years-younger step-brother. They were intimate whenever, and wherever, they could be. The concept of "protected sex" was unknown to them, so, an abortion when Laura was 16 years old was followed by another one a year later. Her family was very supportive. At age 18, she decided to keep her third pregnancy. The family did what they could to keep them apart, but they used any opportunity to be together.
Laura began to turn her life around, going back to school and working as a waitress. She told her family the truth about her and Shawn. He joined the Army, and was stationed in Colorado. One night, he called her and asked her to marry him, along with moving to Colorado. She immediately said Yes. Now with two children, they managed, except for their frequent arguments, where their sordid past was never far away.
After Shawn's Army tour was done, they immediately moved back to Wisconsin. Studying for her Bachelor's degree, she elected to write a paper on abortion for one of her classes. It forced her to re-examine her feelings from her two trips to the abortion clinic. She had a very hard time dealing with it. She withdrew from her family, and started drinking heavily, which her family certainly noticed. Can God ever forgive me for my actions? Can I ever forgive myself? When I reach Heaven, will the souls of my unborn children welcome me or, figuratively, turn their backs on me?
This is a very open and heartfelt chronicle of one person's experience with the aftermath of abortion. Any woman having a similar hard time would do very well to read this book. Anyone, male or female, who wants to know more than just the politics of abortion, would do very well to read this book. It is well worth the time.
Just Another Girl's Story: A Memoir On Finding Redemption by Laura Eckert is a heartbreaking, revealing memoir that explores one woman’s inner wounds and her struggle against depression, taking the reader along on a difficult journey to inner freedom and redemption. Laura Eckert was a broken soul at the tender age of sixteen when she had her first abortion, but that wasn’t enough. Another abortion happened when she was seventeen.
An alcoholic at a youthful age and besieged by frequent bouts of depression, Laura experienced a lot of suffering and shame, unable to heal and gain her freedom from sex addiction. But then she turns thirty and is compelled to take responsibility for her two children and her home. She found freedom and redemption in giving and receiving love. Her journey towards personal transformation is chronicled in these pages, a story that will encourage anyone fettered by any form of addiction to seek hope and healing.
Laura’s story is wonderfully written in a voice that is as clear as it is unwavering, and readers will be gripped by the honesty in her voice and her courage to bare her soul to the reader. She talks about things people would rather carry with them to the grave and, in so doing, she demonstrates that any broken soul can find the light of freedom and the healing they deserve. The writing is fluid and it features very emotionally rich passages and insightful thoughts. Just Another Girl's Story: A Memoir On Finding Redemption is both entertaining and inspiring, a story that carries the powerful message that we can’t be broken beyond repair.
Just Another Girl's Story by Laura Eckert is a personal memoir, and story of love, loss, courage, hope, faith, grief, and redemption!
Starting off with a bang, within the first pages quotes such as: "when deep in the throes of a heated debate, I demanded to know why my perceived enemy could not understand my point of view. By then I never failed in firmly placing God at the center of my arguments, and those who didn't see eye to eye with me wound up on my 'THIS PERSON'S AN IDIOT LIST."
Eckert dives into her tale, with striking candor, and the courage to admit her wrongs, by admitting her self-righteous, opinionated attitude was part of the root of her anger, and therefore destruction. She immediately highlights for her readers the many trials and tribulations that brought her to the deepest pits of despair. From a poor upbringing with the classic-parents in denial-problems, she admits that her blame placing and hatred towards everything and everyone who didn't agree with her, caused a dysfunctional life, and corrupted emotional core.
After two abortions in her teens, a destructive and dangerous addiction to sex and love, and other contributing damaging factors, Eckert was headed to nowhere, fast. She was resentful and angry, and refused to acknowledge her own part in her mistakes, until she woke up. Somebody made her aware of her spoiled and selfish behavior, causing her to do a 360 in the opposite direction by admitting her flaws and faults, character defects, and other issue--the only true way to ever overcome being 'damaged.'
Eckert takes her readers on a roller-coaster ride of emotions gone array, and then to healing and self-salvation in an excellent and revealing, brutally honest, manner that is admirable as much as it is brave. Just another Girl's Story is a must-read for fans of memoirs, tell-all's, self-help, spiritual awakening-motivated-stories, and anyone looking for truth in a novel, about a young woman who could have ended up another sad statistic, but instead fought for her happiness and allowed herself to heal, completely.
Great read.
