Tindell Baldwin's words best describe her passion and this book:

"My heart is for teenage girls because my story is much like so many of theirs. I was just a girl who made a lot of mistakes. I was a girl who had sex before marriage and then had a broken heart. I was a girl who did drugs and drank to fill the void that was deep in my heart. I was a girl who was desperate to be popular. A girl who, like so many others, didn't know the dark side of sin. So my aim is to reach teenage girls, and through an honest account of my darkest sins, show them what they are up against. My heart is that teens would hear my story and flee to Christ. My greatest desire is that God would be glorified above all else."

Through a two-part journey ("Dark" and "Light"), Tindell details how she said goodbye to her family's God and pursued popularity at all costs while climbing the social chain in high school. During a night of partying, she even encountered the man suspected of killing Natalee Holloway in Aruba. But God did not leave Tindell. The "Light" part of her story shows how she reconnected with God, changed her ways, and discovered abundant and real life through Christ.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 17 JUN 2013

Baldwin is a "new adult": her memoir of her wild-child teenage years is written in retrospect with energy and sincerity. As a teenager, she drank heavily and slept around; she came from a comfortable and loving middle-class home but acted out against her family. Baldwin's memoir is long on strong faith statements, but relatively lacking in psychological insight. The context of the Christian family in which she grew up is not much examined. Her mother, for example, is ill, but Baldwin says very little about what that meant. Her family's reputation is occasionally referred to ("No one could believe that I, a member of the Stanfill family, wanted to get drunk") but not explained well. More reflection might have broadened her audience. As it stands, her readers will be Christian teenagers in church youth groups, just as she once was. Still, Baldwin's voice is distinctive and painfully honest, and her cautionary tale will speak to some in a big-sister way. Ages 14 up.

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