On Becoming Me: Memoir of an 80’s Teenager

BookFest Awards - Honorable Mention (2022)
Readers Favorite 5 Star Award (2022)

​This is the story of a confident young girl who became a lost teenager, wanted to disappear, started to find herself, discovered love, was wild, reckless, and confused, but ultimately found a way to be okay. Told in her words as she lived them through her diaries, journals, poetry, and letters.

Praise for On Becoming Me: Memoir of an 80’s Teenager:

D.Donovan, Sr. Reviewer,Midwest Book Review says: “...a unique look back whose approach and format is a true gift to time-travel.”
”...consider(s) many questions about everything from relationships to moral development and social evolution.”
”...rare chronicles of experience that don’t come from the revised wisdom of hindsight.”
“One reason this is so powerful is the gift of consistency...this provides a uniformity of evolutionary growth as it depicts a timeline of change.” 

Bookreview.com writes: “With unabashed honesty and tenderness, she portrays the intricacies of being a teenager, delving into her adolescent fears, uncertainties, self-doubts, hopes, and desires...the diary format gives her story an arresting intimacy and immediacy...candid and engrossing, this book makes for a nostalgic read.”

​Quill says: Author Kirsten Pursell opens up her “memory vault” in a raw, honest, coming-of-age memoir set against the backdrop of the 80s, that is relevant for all generations.

Online Book Club: “...Telling her story through journal/diary entries was fresh, unique, original, and rare...sincere and authentic...delves into crucial and sensitive topics peculiar to teens and seemingly incomprehensible to other ages...impeccable editing of this work.”