For the One Holding This Book in the Quiet

“A memoir about survival, silence, and rising —
The Girl the Darkness Raised by A.L. Childers.
This story feels cinematic, atmospheric, and painfully real.
Exploring themes seen in projects by @A24, @NetflixFilm, and @HelloSunshine.”

If you’re reading this,

there is a reason.

Maybe you saw yourself in pieces of my story —

in the hunger, or the silence,

or the girl who learned to disappear,

or the woman who carried too much for too long.

Maybe you recognized the exhaustion.

The pretending.

The shrinking.

The ache of being unseen in your own life.

Maybe you felt the sting of shame

for wanting more than survival.

Whatever brought you here,

hear me clearly:

You deserve a life that doesn’t break you.

You deserve joy without apology.

You deserve freedom without fear.

You deserve to be loved without conditions.

You deserve to occupy space without earning it.

And if the world taught you otherwise,

let this book be your proof

that they were wrong.

You are not too much.

You are not hard to love.

You are not broken beyond repair.

You are not the sum of what happened to you.

You are not the version of yourself that pain created.

You are becoming —

and becoming is holy work.

If something in this book cracked open a door in you,

even a small one,

even a sliver of light —

follow it.

There is a life waiting for you that does not hurt to live.

The Girl the Darkness Raised: A Memoir of Scarcity, Survival, and Becoming