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Summary: This book was difficult, emotionally, to read
Review: If you are currently in an abusive situation or have suffered one, you may be quite emotionally affected by this book. I went through what the main character, Fran, did, plus some more. That was in the 70's when no help was available....Reading this book brought all sorts of memories back. Quinlan was right on target as far as what goes through one's mind during such an ordeal.
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Summary: It captures what it is like to live in the fear
Review: This is the first book that I have read that completley captures the fear that a woman feels when she is being threatened by a loved one. A moving and vividly written slice of life. You feel for her and her son as if they were your friends next door.
Rating:
Summary: powerful, moving
Review: Anna Quindlen captured my attention with the first sentence in BLACK AND BLUE: A NOVEL. She writes with such flair that I feel every bit a part of her story.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, a little far fetched at times
Review: I too fled from an abusive husband. I had 5 children and did not get free housing and other free things to help me survive. But, most of the book was very realistic to me. I think the author should have prefaced this book with how many law enforcement officers are abusers!!!
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Summary: A good account of what Beth does to stop being black& blue.
Review: An interesting peek inside what really happens when someone (without the ability to help herself) faces emotional and physical abuse by someone they love. Included in the book is no offer of what went wrong or how to fix it, just a single example of one woman's secret journey of escape.
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Summary: It was good!
Review: I have read every book on the Oprah list except Paradise, and have found all of them too be good. I was expecting more out of this novel than i received. It was a wonderful novel, but could have been more. WHen I began reading it I had a hard time getting into it but once i got in it, I couldn't get out. I felt the pain and abuse that "Beth," had endured. The ending was a little expected and I was able to figure out most of the book before it happened. NOnetheless i recommend the book...
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Summary: Predictability with quirks.
Review: I enjoyed this book, the plot was enough to keep me interested, although I do think that it was a little to much like a fairy tale. Some questions were raised regarding the effects of domestic violence and victimisation but only vaguely. The ending discussed in some details the feelings of the mother and her hopes and fears but once again I believe that the ending was in many ways much better than could really be expected. I gave this book a rating of 8 because it was easy to read and promoted thought, its plot had some quirks in it that changed its predictability.
Rating:
Summary: Realistic but too cliched
Review: I found Fran's story to be so like my own in many aspects. The inexplicable desire to stay, the burning, frightening need to escape. I especially loved the paragraph that gave Fran's reason for staying as the fear of losing her home, not her husband, her "stuff". This is the stuff that makes your life feel warm and fuzzy--when you're not bandaging your body or your son's psyche. For that passage alone I will pass this book on to my mother and friends who could never understand why I stayed so long. I must admit however that two-thirds of the way through the book I became quite frustrated. It was as if Ms. Quinlen were trying to fuse every abused, middle class woman into one character. The constant cliches incorporated into the last portion of the book were most disappointing. "My life isn't so bad because I have not had to endure the Holocaust." "Just because I'm pregnant does not mean I can't leave." "I did all I could and tried to be independent but I'm just a woman after all and I screwed up because I can't act logically rather than emotionally and now I've lost my child." My son is 17 now, never disappeared and never ever misunderstood that the wrong actions could lead to his demise or mine. He is healthy, handsome and capable of protecting himself now. Physically at least, we still work on emotional/psychological safety but he understands where we are and where we are going and that his life is his own, his decisions are his own now and I hope that he is prepared to endure the pain and bask in the joy that life can bring.
Rating:
Summary: incredibly moving, life-altering reading
Review: I am Fran, and I have a Robert. Our stories are amazingly similar, and I'm starting to wonder not if my ex-husband is watching me, but if Anna Quindlen has been watching me. This moving account of one woman's courage and attempt to protect her son while still hanging on to remnants of her own life answered questions for me that I never could answer myself. For now my son is safe, but it is a constant, never-ending battle. I look forward to the day when it will end, hopefully when he is an adult and can take care of himself and understand why some things had to be. To those of you who felt this was just a redundant book about an overdone topic - I'd gladly walk a mile in your shoes if you'd walk just three steps in mine.
Rating: 
Summary: A promising storyline let down by mediocre prose
Review: In a world where one can be judged by the company she keeps, the author makes the catastrophic blunder of creating an uncaring lead character. With prose resembling a 3rd grader's blackboard scrawlings, Ms Quindlen paints a surpisingly unaffecting, as well as uninspiring landscape into the horrific problem of domestic abuse. Conjuring up dark images, with dry underpinnings, may work for those of the narcisistic pursuasion, but is not the most effective way to develop a heroine. What should be a bitter, albeit important lesson in life's hard knocks, turns into an ordeal for the reader, rivaled only by that of the lead character. Even more disturbing is the macabre humor Ms Quinlan attempts to inject into an otherwise dark story. we see two forces at battle here for control of the novel's direction and unfortuanely the less enlightened side won out.
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