NOT GOOD ENOUGH GIRL
A Memoir of an Inconvenient Daughter
Release date: March, 2025
She Writes Press
Amidst the control, confusion, and chaos exacted by her eight-times-married mother, this author's story spans the extreme emotions of a mother-daughter relationship, touching on cyclical family dysfunction, addiction, and forgiveness.
Sondra begins auditioning for the role of her authentic self at age five—and continues to do so for decades to come. Her dazzling mother casts her as confidante and co-conspirator in her affairs and serial marriages, while Sondra vacillates between fierce anger toward her mother—who does nothing to protect her from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse—and a desperate need for her love and approval.
As an adult, Sondra enters into and stays in a toxic marriage for years, engaging in affairs with married men rather than divorcing. When therapy and AA eventually propel her out of her sense-deadening haze of alcohol and cigarettes, she finally leaves her husband and attempts for the first time to establish a sober and separate identity. But tensions between her and her mother further increase when she marries someone new—a man who displaces her mother as the epicenter of her life—and her mother's seventh marriage ends. During this time, traumatic childhood memories suddenly surface and a seismic shift occurs, freeing Sondra from her need for maternal connection. But establishing a life independent from her mother proves far more complicated than she ever could have imagined.
She graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy as a ballet major, studied musical theatre at Carnegie Mellon University, and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from University of Phoenix. She has served as judge in various writing competitions, and is a member of Authors Guild of America, Story Circle Network, National Association of Memoir Writers, and North Carolina Writers Network. She lives in a log cabin in the woods of North Carolina with three cats and seven rescue dogs. Her husband of seventeen years considers himself to be a rescue as well. Sondra enjoys cycling, beekeeping, forest farming, organic gardening, and caring for her botanical sanctuary.