dark places gillian flynn barnes and noble

I became an utter stranger to myself in every aspect, and a failure in every way it mattered. I had not felt bad about wanting to have sex with someone I loved until he told me I should, and then the guilt came in a wave, towering and heavy, and I tumbled and sunk and gasped for air. As clothes were put back on, eyes diverted with shame, I was declared a vehicle of Satan, sent to destroy the relationship between my Christian boyfriend and Jesus. In one bewildering moment, I was no longer considered pure. From those pop stars to television shows to books geared toward my age group, there were very few, if any, female characters that reflected living a life outside of that feminine trinity by choice and with any measure of enviable success.Īt sixteen, my twiggy body became rounder and thicker seemingly overnight, with a late burst of adolescence and a prescription for birth control pills. Media followed and scrutinized their every movement and every word, their perceived morality intertwined with their continuing rise or inevitable fall.

There was neither room nor tolerance for a gray area between, and if someone managed to prove otherwise, that success was merely a short-term loan from the devil, due for certain collection at any moment.Ī decade later and on the other side of the country, female pop singers, glowing with fame and power and sexiness, would still feel the need to publicly declare themselves godly and chaste in interviews on MTV.

Those factors served as dividers between good and bad, value and trash, success and disgrace. As a girl born in the Bible Belt in the 1980s, I grew up understanding femininity to be a holy trinity all its own: purity, presentation, and popularity.

Dark places gillian flynn barnes and noble