It's never easy to hear the stories of women abused by their husband, but it's always good to hear about the one that got away. ( )

I'm in the middle of reading this book. I have to admit, I am afraid to pick it up and continue. It goes to prove, that domestic violence occurs in all income levels, across the board. ( )

When the author of this compelling memoir met a handsome young man on the New York subway and started dating him, she thought she'd met the man of her dreams. But does the man of your dreams choke you, punch you in the face while you're driving, push you down the stairs, or hold a gun to your head? Conor (a pseudonym), whose abusive childhood treatment at the hands of his stepfather has turned him into an abusive adult, repeatedly professes his love for Leslie, despite his continued abuse. Leslie herself repeats over and over how much she loves him and how she doesn't want to abandon him like his mother did. But over the course of their three years together, she slowly comes to realize that she cannot help him overcome his past and that he will never stop abusing her. The reader knows from the very first page that Steiner escapes this awful marriage, but that doesn't make the story any less of a page-turner. ( )

The book tells of the difficulties Steiner faced during her four year marriage to an abusive husband. It was difficult to read because of the trama involved. It was an interesting book group discussion. ( )

People often wonder why a woman stays with an abusive husband. In this book, Leslie Morgan Steiner describes her courtship and marriage to a husband who tried to kill her. In doing so, she describes how an abusive marriage can happen to anyone. The author describes all the reasons why she loved Conor, but also described all the red flags that she explained away to herself.

I could not put this book down. What I found especially wrenching were 2 things. At one point, before going through with the wedding, the author decides to tells someone about the abuse. First, she calls a domestic abuse hotline--only to get a busy signal. So then she decides to tell her father. She arranges to meet him for breakfast--only to find that he didn't show up. I had to wonder how differently things might have gone were it not for these 2 critical failures. The other thing I found amazing was that in doing research on abusive relationships, the author discovers that while numerous studies have been done on the female victimes, few studies have been done on the male perpetrators. The one researcher she conversed with, without ever knowing that she was a victim, described her husband and their relationship perfectly.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to understand domestic violence. ( )