Girl Hidden Book Tour
Cover Blurb
At the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains sits the small farm towns of Rockwell, Sugar Loaf and Liledoun, North Carolina. A large family struggles to survive the chaotic nature of the family head: their mother, a blend of rage, disappointment, and religious command. Her husband follows sheepishly behind, a monster of his own kind. And then there’s young Jesse: unwanted from conception but kept as a pawn for her mother’s bidding. Her life is a tale of growing up with no one to count on but herself. A story of southern hills, a mother’s neglect, fireflies, kidnapping, birth, death, and the taste of sweet mulberries ripened by the sun. Jesse is a girl, hidden, who becomes a woman, discovered.
Other Titles By the Author
Jesse Rene Gibbs
Author Bio
My name is Jesse René Gibbs and I am the author of Girl Hidden. I am an artist, designer, dancer and survivor. I am a stepmother to four, Amma to four more and blessed beyond measure with the family that I chose.
My book is based on the true story of my life, gleaned from years of my mother’s writings, my grandmother’s journals and my own experiences. I did my best to showcase the depth of damage that growing up with a narcissistic parent can have on a person, and how hard it is to come to terms with the amount of gaslighting that comes with that life. My siblings all have their own stories of being played against each other, bullied and even emotionally tortured by our parents. We were trained to not trust our own intuition, raised in a life of poverty, a lack of privacy and the endlessly traumatizing purity culture.
I was hunted in my own home by the man my mother married and escaped at nineteen only to land in an intentional community in Chicago that did nearly as much damage. My best friend in the book is also real, and she did more to walk me through my trauma, and she is the main reason that these stories were finally published.
My new life in Seattle didn’t start until well into my thirties, and I’m still working on deconstructing my life up to that point. I wrote Girl Hidden to organize my life in my own mind and to undo years of lies. I also wrote it because others need to know that they are not alone.
The Book Tour
Day 1 - Favourite Quotes
Day 2 - Character Summaries
Jesse Gibbs, for her tenacity, magical way with words, and awe-inspiring resilience. She’s a real person, but one of the best characters I’ve ever gotten to know. I can relate deeply to her in very personal ways. We’ve both grown up in the American South in less-than-pleasant families, we’re both writers at heart as a means of escaping a world not meant for us. (Medley Wolfgram)
Although a real person and not a character, Jesse could be the heroine in a novel with the ups and downs she has experienced. The fact she has come through the horrific trials of her childhood to not only survive but thrive is a testament to her strength of character and resilience. The way she supported the other members of her family is incredible, given that she was so young herself. Her younger siblings were very fortunate to have her around to help bring them up. I dread to think how bad things could have been for them if this wasn’t the case. (Michelle Marshall)
Jesse in all her incarnations in the book, from babe, to childhood slave, to healing adult coming to terms with the abuse of her past, is my favourite character. Perhaps out of all these incarnations, my very favourite has to be the young Jesse. Watching from the sidelines as she tackles all the obstacles placed in her way, I found myself rooting for her to succeed, to get out, to find peace, joy, and happiness. She almost found it when she finally left home and then married, but it was as if she was literally going from one abusive situation to another. Gradually, though, she learns that her past is her past. She can’t change it, but she can come to terms with it, to deal with it, to heal from it and move on. Jesse Gibbs gives us great insight into what it was like living through the abuse, losing her memory of the happy times, and regaining that memory, along with the strength to make lemonade from the tons of lemons life had thrown at her. Yes, this is her own life story, but through her storytelling, she helps us to see how she, as a character in her life, has grown and developed. The Jesse in her story follows the same progression and we rejoice in her success. (Phoebe Wilby)
Jesse’s book covers the first nineteen years of her life while under her abusive mother’s spell. Her strength of character even as a child is nothing short of amazing. How she worked through her young life looking after everything and everyone is almost unbelievable. Her parents truly did not deserve such a wonderful, special daughter. A truly heartbreaking story of her growth and heartbreak, it is miraculous that she is as well put together as she is! An amazingly brave young lady to write this book of her memoirs and put it out into the world, as is often the case with abuse survivors. We are rooting for her to escape and have the good things she deserves in life. (Yvonne Marrs)
As this is a memoir, for me as a reviewer its not about who my favourite character is but about the person that I connected with the most and that would have to be Jesse. For a child to have to endure so much pain and trauma is heart breaking. Jesse had to grow up quickly and was denied her childhood as she became the main caregiver for her siblings. And the horrific abuse she was subjected to by her mother and stepfather had me feeling emotions I just cannot put into words. Jesse is an unbelievably strong, kind, caring and selfless person and as the Founder of the Book Dragon I am privileged to be supporting her in sharing her story. I hope in some way this memoir has brought her further healing. (Kirsty McKay)
My favourite character is Prudence, the mother of Dolores. Whilst only small in stature, she makes up for this by being assertive and commanding. Two traits she definitely needs with a daughter like Dolores. (Niall McKay)
My favourite character is Jesse, who has had to put up with so much through her life. She is truly courageous. She has had to learn to be an adult at a very young age which is heart breaking. There aren’t many people who could come through what she’s come through and survive. (Bronwyn McKay)
Day 3 - Favourite Excerpts
“This is where I grew up. But it is not where I started. My story actually launches thousands of miles from this tiny town, and like so many things in my life,it begins with my mother.” (Medley Wolfgram)
Jesse headed his way and asked him to dance. She loved getting new dancers out on the floor. He acquiesced in a voice that was low and deep in timbre and portrayed a sense of self-assurance. He put his arm around her and pulled her against his broad chest as the music started. Two beats in and Jesse knew that she had found a winner. Blues may not have been his first love, but the man knew how to dance. He turned her every which way and made her look good doing it. He slowed at just the right moments and had no qualms about stopping altogether to allow the music and the tension to build. Without realizing it, Jesse found her cheek against his and felt his breath hot on her ear. The chemistry was perfect. (Michelle Marshall)
“The hardest part about writing a memoir is this: I lived through it all. It’s hard to build drama when you know that I survived. And luckily, better than I should have. In writing this book I’ve agonized over every page, and rewritten it nearly a dozen times because of new information that I’ve discovered or new insight on an old situation. But I lived through all of it.” (Phoebe Wilby)
“Could it be true? After all her efforts to keep herself safe from her stepfather? After standing up for herself and refusing to be a victim when she was five, did he slowly manipulate his way into her world after all?” (Yvonne Marrs)
They made nearly every move wrong and had the time of their lives. Jesse twirled and laughed and took the hands of the experienced dancers as they spun her about. She and Ethan returned to the table surrounded by hoots and hollers, back slaps, and cheers. Jesse sat back down at the table, taking baby Judah from his mother to burp him. She held him close and smiled, incredibly, feeling happy for a moment. (Bronwyn McKay)
She loved being adored by all the miniature people as well. "JESSE!" they would shriek when they saw her. They would run - RUN towards her and leap into her arms. She knew them all, and adored them: their faults and foibles, their habits, and their funnies. She had memorised all their favourite books and she could recite them on demand. Small children have the ability to love - really love - without restraint, and Jesse needed everything that they could offer. (Kirsty McKay)
He explained to Luke that he was going to get a spanking, and took off his belt as Luke began to cry. Sitting down on the hall chair he reached his arm back and stopped. His head turned as he mentally processed the soft growl of the massive rottweiler whose teeth had Robert's arm in a vice grip. Slick looked at Robert and ever so gently applied pressure to the bite - though not so hard as to break the skin, just hard enough to show he meant business. Robert dropped his belt and let go of his son, not daring to look away from the dog who was growling deep in his throat as if to say, "Lay one hand on my puppy and I will. Take. Your. Arm. Off.” (Niall McKay)
Day 4 - Video Interview
Day 5 - Reviews
Overall Rating: 5 Stars. Girl Hidden was an endlessly pleasant read, though not pleasant for the sake of the content. The characters sprung to life as if they were in the room next to me. I found myself rooting for Dolores, and then her daughter Jesse. The nefarious men and women in the story would remind anyone of their own skeletons and the people better left in the past. Overall, I loved the book and cried more times than I would’ve liked to. (Medley Wolfgram)
Overall Rating: 5 Stars. A beautifully written and heartfelt memoir from an intelligent and insightful author. At times I felt like my heart would break reading the experiences that Jesse has endured in her life but despite the devastating pain she has been through, her hope and strength shine through. She is truly an amazing and inspiring woman and although this book is in a genre I would usually avoid due to the content, I am so glad I haven’t missed out on this book. (Michelle Marshall)
Overall Rating: 5 Stars. This is a book that should never have had to be written. Jesse Gibbs’ memoir about childhood abuse and the effects of this on a young child is a sad indictment on how society often fails the vulnerable, believing the lies of the abuser over the facts presented by either the victim, or those who are championing her cause. From the outset, we don’t feel sorry for Dolores, the self-centred, narcissistic perpetrator of a lot of the abuse. This will be partly because the story is told from the point of view of the child victim, but also because the story is so horrific. Over the course of the story, young Jesse is subjected to physical, sexual, emotional, and financial abuse as well as neglect. She becomes a slave to her mother, a plaything for her stepfather, a substitute mother for the younger half-siblings her mother pops out every so often, and, when she is old enough to go out to work, she has to hand over all of her wages. But there is an upside to this story, a hope that it will all come out for good in the end. Jesse has a number of people who are looking out for her, once they know what is going on. First and foremost is her maternal grandparents. Although her grandfather succumbs to a moment of weakness and gives his granddaughter back to his daughter, he lives to regret that decision and comes through for her in the end. This is a story of resilience, of beating the odds. Jesse Gibbs’s story is a compelling read with believable characters, fast paced storytelling and showing us, the reader, what life was like for her and her siblings. There were no major editing issues that I noted, and while ‘joy’ is probably not the emotion I felt reading the book, I did enjoy the story from the perspective of a well-written life story. (Phoebe Wilby)
Overall Rating: 5 Stars. Girl Hidden is Jesse’s story; an unwanted child, forced into servitude and desperately trying to protect her siblings from the manipulating and abusive relationship with their mother. With the family living on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains making up the bulk of Jesse’s memories, she relives everything as she takes in the old homes where she and her family lived to create this book. With lots of characters, some drifting in and out of the story, and time jumps aplenty, this can be confusing reading. You can’t put it down once you reach the middle though where most of the time jumps make sense. It is worth hanging on to finish this book, and I would recommend it. (Yvonne Marrs)
Overall Rating: 5 Stars. The depth of every character is there to read. This is quite simply down to each character being real. Characters are gritty, naive, brutal, aggressive, caring, protective, and so much more. Jesse as an individual and of course the author is brave and in bringing her life to words, extraordinary. What I really liked is the way each character was flawed but also had positive traits too even if these didn’t always surface. Take Dolores - an exceptionally flawed character, yet in moments showed some of her humanity. Brilliantly captured by the author. Written in the third person, dialogue was limited but this did not detract from Jesse’s story. Dialogue was effective in capturing interaction between the characters. It helped to capture thoughts and feelings as portrayed throughout the story. Jumping between Jesse’s youth and adulthood the scenes worked well. I found the pace slow over the first few chapters as the characters were introduced but I also feel this was intentional. The reader needed to appreciate characters’ pasts to understand their present. So patience at the start of the story is very much rewarded as the book develops. In terms of the overall plot, as a memoir this is captured fantastically well by the author. Each event builds in to the next. What happens to Jesse takes the reader on a rollercoaster of emotion. Tragic and horrific in places, happy and moving in others. The jump from past to present throughout the book works extremely well and this is credit to the author in terms of building the story. Very well edited throughout. This makes the story highly readable and the words flow from each page. (Niall McKay)
Overall Rating: 5 Stars. Girl Hidden by Jess Gibbs is an emotionally charged and heart wrenching account of Jesse's journey through a childhood deprived of love, marred with abuse, and overshadowed by the presence of a narcissistic mother and a completely inappropriate step father. This poignant memoirs delves into the depths of human suffering, highlighting the strength, resilience, and unwavering spirit of a young girls who endures unimaginable circumstances. From the very first page, the reader is drawn into Jesse's world, feeling her pain, confusion and longing for a normal childhood. The authors evocative storytelling brings forth the raw emotions and vividly portrays the traumatic experiences that shaped Jesse's early years. The narrative is both captivating and heartrending, leaving an indelible mark on the readers heart. Despite the immense hardships she faces, Jesse emerges as a beacon of strength and resilience. Her unwavering determination to protect her younger siblings and care for them whilst surviving the abhorrent abuse inflicted upon her is nothing short of inspiring. While Girl Hidden is undoubtedly a painful read, it also serves as a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit. As Jesse's story unfolds, the reader is taken on a journey where Jesse ultimately finds the courage to break free from the cycle of abuse. This is a remarkable memoir that sheds light on the hidden horrors of childhood abuse whilst celebrating the indomitable spirit of Jesse. A profoundly moving account that will leave readers inspired and deeply touched. (Kirsty McKay)
Book Tour Reviewers
