Popular By: Tindell Baldwin

I decided to read this book by Tindell Baldwin due to the subject matter. The first sentence on the back of the book captured my attention and I had to read it. “All I was asking for at fifteen was to belong, to be loved, and to be a part of something.” My big question when I started reading this book was how do you explain to your daughter why they shouldn’t act a certain way or why they shouldn’t do certain things? As Baldwin explains in her book, sometimes answers aren’t so simple. Popular is Baldwin’s memoir. She lived through this. I can only imagine the courage it took to write it. From addictions to alcohol, drugs, and sex to giving her life to God, this book will touch your heart and encourage you as you read what she struggled with and how she overcame. Her explanation of why sex outside of marriage doesn’t work: there’s no commitment to back up the gift of intimacy. Without the commitment, there’s emptiness. With open honesty, painful truthfulness, and a little bit of irony, Baldwin tells her life story to be an inspiration to others—to keep others from following in her path, to help them understand that God asks us to be different not because He wants us to suffer, but to keep us from the alternative. Teenagers are too often left behind. Nobody wants to find out why they act like they do. Each one has a story and each one just wants to know they are loved. Their crowd believes that parents shouldn’t have any control; they should be able to do as they please without any restrictions. Thanks for this book and the healing I know it will bring to teenager girls and adults as well.