Rating: 
Summary: Great writing, riveting plot, even if it was a bit cliched
Review: While I felt that Quindlen has a great stylistic approach, I felt she could have changed some of the cliches. Like, why did Bobby have to be a "dark, brooding, Italian," why couldn't he be the All-American type; some of them beat their wives. Then there's the accident at the carnival and she happens to appear on TV. And why, why do female characters always have to find some new man to help them "forget the past and start a new life?!!" I can see if this were a Danielle Steele novel or some Movie-of-the-Week. Overall, her use of metaphor and description of the violent acts were powerful. And I liked the ending; it was real and I like reality in fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Intense
Review: "Black and Blue" gave me an insight into a world that I know exists, but one that I have not experienced in my own life. I could feel the blows and the words that hurt just as much as the blows. I wanted to protect her every bit as much as I wanted to protect Robert. One should not be surprised at the ending if one thinks about the world of the policeman. He is all powerful, all knowing if you will. He has access to information that the normal person can only read about. I was sorry that Robert was taken from Fran, but then again, I don't believe that his father would ever physically abuse him. He seems to want to abuse only the female in his life, perhaps because he really does not respect the mother he seems to dote on, simply because she is so doting on him. She has no respect for Fran, so why should he? I would very much like to see Ms Quindlan write a sequel to see just how much mental abuse the father can inflict on the son and thus influence him to be another woman predator or to see if his memories of the early years and his flight will stand him in good stead for the future. All in all I loved the book as I also loved "One True Thing." BUT I really wonder - How can an author take such two totally different subjects and have such an insight into them? These are not just ficticious works, but works of deep human involvement. How does one write with such intensity about that which one has not experienced?
Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: I left a similar marriage five years ago. I feel that Ms. Quindlen's protrayal of a battered woman is accurate, and anyone (male or female) who is contemplating leaving an abusive partner should read this book. I was somewhat disappointed by the ending, and felt that it didn't fit somehow. Still, this is one of the better novels about a subject that needs all the visibility it can get.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply disturbing, terrifyingly close to home...
Review: ...but still thouroughly enjoyable. I have only read one other book that could leave me in tears as it ended. This one had me so infatuated and absorbed that I had to recover before being seen in public. I know this terror from personal experience, and though it is far in the past, now, the perspective is real and heartrending.
Rating:
Summary: I loved it and wanted it to go on and on. Sequel??!!
Review: I enjoyed Black and Blue thoroughly. I love the way Ms Quindlen writes. It was pretty much impossible to put down once I started the book. It was an eye opener into unhealthy relationships and especially into Fran Benedetto's.
Rating:
Summary: A book for every woman who has ever been a mother.
Review: The fear, abuse, and loss will taunt every mother and, hopefully, will encourage the battered wife to get needed and deserved help. Anna Quindlen's inimitable style weaves a story that will not soon pass from memory.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing New
Review: Quite simply, this is an overated mess of a novel that says nothing new about a serious issue. The characters are thin, particularly poor little generic Robert and his cardboard cutout friends. The biggest mistake is reading to the end expecting something important will happen - it doesn't. I guess it produced some response because I threw it at the wall promptlly after reading the last miserable page.
Rating:
Summary: A soft telling of one of life's hard parts.
Review: Fran and Bobby. Bobby and Fran. I can see their names carved in some great oak tree, inside the divided heart. For many women burdened by the secret life of the battered, that's the way it is-a heart divided. A heart that loves the batterer but hates what they've became. A torn heart that wants to leave one day and talks itself out of going the next. An anxious protective heart that doesn't want to physically tear a family apart, despite the obvious chasm that domestic violence creates. Denial is a dangerous thing. "Jesus,I loved him.There,I said it.It makes me feel stupid, sometimes feeling my scars,the spots where you can just make out the damage and the ones where the bruises and hurts live on only in my head. I loved Bobby and,he loved me. Anyone who heard him say it once would never disbelieve it. In the beginning I loved him,loved him,loved him pure and simple.And then after a while I loved the idea of, the good Bobby,who came to me every once in a w! ! hile and rubbed my back and kissed my fingers. And I loved our life,the long stretches of tedium and small pleasures that marked most of our time together. Our life was like a connect-the-dots drawing,and those were the lines, the bad things only the haphazard arrangement of dots they connected." Quindlan's writing gives Fran's life a lyrical quality and throughout, the character seems to be dreamy and unrealistic. So much so that even during lucid moments she is still unable to properly connect her own dots. Most unbelievable is that after going underground to escape the violence, she lets her guard down and nearly becomes a fatal statistic of abuse.
Rating:
Summary: A "Can't Put it Down Book"
Review: I agree with many of the other reviewers that the ending was a disappointment. I was riveted by the book, yet a bit turned off by all the descriptive prose that Ms. Quindlen seems to thrive on. However, kudos to her for writing a captivating novel.
Rating:
Summary: Brought me to tears instantly-has changed my life.
Review: An important book for women involved in any type of abusive relationship.It literally will change your life and provide the strength necessary to re-evaluate the relationship and even to leave it. Quite possibly the best and most powerful book I have ever read.
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