The Making of a Woman

Book excerpt: Told with an unflinchingly honest voice as real as the flawed people that populated her world, The Making of a Woman is an unexpected memoir exploring the path less traveled. Childhood abuse and trauma powered an alcoholism that would nearly defeat Jewels. Yet Jewels assures us that even when we lose those things that give shape to our soul--belonging, the need for touch, and safety in our own home--we can go on to devise a new way of being that surpasses our childhood haunts. Jewels was seven years old when her father attempted a family suicide, so her mother whisked her away to the arms and family of another man. Ruled by her mother's delusional survival aspirations and the ignored evidence of her suffering at the hands of her new relatives, life became a daily struggle for survival for Jewels. But when the truth could no longer be hidden, the family split, leaving Jewels to navigate a new world, not of her making. Deciding to use her earlier trauma to enter recovery, sexually liberate herself, and enter the competitive world of professional bodybuilding, Jewels created a life that inspires others to push forward no matter the details. In this uncommon ode to survival, Jewels creates a quite unexpected career from her truth--underscored by her complicated relationship with the allure of sexuality. Through a tangle of forgiveness and understanding emerges an elevated journey of the mechanisms for survival, of pain and joy, and of discovering that family is what you make of it.