IndigoReign609
***Embargo*** is a memoir about what happens when a girl is denied nearly everything she needs to become whole-and builds herself anyway.
Rejected by her family, ostracized by her peers, alienated from her community, and repeatedly failed by the adults responsible for protecting her, Giselle Harris grew up without consistent love, comfort, safety, or belonging. Her happiness made other people uncomfortable. Her confidence was treated like defiance. Her sensitivity, creativity, and difference were used against her.
So she created her own world.
Through imagination, fashion, art, education, ambition, and sheer refusal, Giselle transformed deprivation into vision. The discomfort she endured became the foundation of her taste. The isolation that was meant to break her became the space where she learned to think independently. The people who tried to make her feel insignificant unknowingly gave her the hunger to become accomplished, educated, creative, and impossible to erase.
Told through memories rather than strict chronology, *Embargo* explores childhood neglect, poverty, family trauma, Black womanhood, generational suffering, identity, creativity, and the lifelong pursuit of softness after a life built around survival.
This is not only the story of what was done to her.
It is the story of what she built afterward.
How does someone build an empire when she is denied every import-love, kindness, protection, consistency, opportunity, and peace?
She learns to manufacture everything herself.