Scan barcode
cck13's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Trussoni spins an intense story about love, feeling trapped, how to break free. She is a masterful writer and storyteller.
liralen's review against another edition
4.0
I was a woman ready to be swept away. I was a woman ready for her story to begin. (12)
A Love Story, says the subtitle, but don't discount that crack running through the cover.
Trussoni was fresh out of another relationship when she fell for Nikolai, a writer and pianist from Bulgaria. Theirs was supposed to be that swept-away-by-love story, and for a while it was. But the cracks showed early—there's a moment when Nikolai reads the journals that Trussoni had told him (directly) were off-limits, and my mind boggled. (As someone who has on and off kept journals, and who has other writing that is better off unexplored...I consider reading one's private writing a break-up-able offense.) There are other moments.
The Fortress stretches across years and across space, moving with the relationship across the US and Europe. Because of this, Trussoni is able to show so much of the framework that built both people and relationship. Nikolai, for example: when they live for a time in Bulgaria, she comes to understand him as something of a hothouse flower, cultivated by his parents to be intelligent and educated and a brilliant pianist but not entirely fit for a world in which he must work hard, a world in which his talents are not widely lauded. She examines her own flaws, too, from the things that made her stay in the relationship to the things that contributed to the cracks in the relationship. And when that relationship collapsed, it did so in spectacular fashion.
I won't spoil the story—better to let it unfold as you read—but I'll say this much: there are moment near the end when I could feel anxiety rising, uncertain as I was how much Trussoni would lose before the end, and then she'd drop in a little hint, just a line or two, to give the reader an idea of how things turned out. I barely noticed the first one, but at the second I paused to go back for the first. It's a complicated enough ending that these 'spoilers' don't tell anywhere near the full story, but their placement is intriguing.
A love story, but not a happily-ever-after.
A Love Story, says the subtitle, but don't discount that crack running through the cover.
Trussoni was fresh out of another relationship when she fell for Nikolai, a writer and pianist from Bulgaria. Theirs was supposed to be that swept-away-by-love story, and for a while it was. But the cracks showed early—there's a moment when Nikolai reads the journals that Trussoni had told him (directly) were off-limits, and my mind boggled. (As someone who has on and off kept journals, and who has other writing that is better off unexplored...I consider reading one's private writing a break-up-able offense.) There are other moments.
The Fortress stretches across years and across space, moving with the relationship across the US and Europe. Because of this, Trussoni is able to show so much of the framework that built both people and relationship. Nikolai, for example: when they live for a time in Bulgaria, she comes to understand him as something of a hothouse flower, cultivated by his parents to be intelligent and educated and a brilliant pianist but not entirely fit for a world in which he must work hard, a world in which his talents are not widely lauded. She examines her own flaws, too, from the things that made her stay in the relationship to the things that contributed to the cracks in the relationship. And when that relationship collapsed, it did so in spectacular fashion.
I won't spoil the story—better to let it unfold as you read—but I'll say this much: there are moment near the end when I could feel anxiety rising, uncertain as I was how much Trussoni would lose before the end, and then she'd drop in a little hint, just a line or two, to give the reader an idea of how things turned out. I barely noticed the first one, but at the second I paused to go back for the first. It's a complicated enough ending that these 'spoilers' don't tell anywhere near the full story, but their placement is intriguing.
A love story, but not a happily-ever-after.
misscbingley's review against another edition
3.0
"I had always believed we were exceptional, but now I saw that we were just your run-of-the-mill egotistical assholes."
Um, whoa. I have a penchant for train-wreck relationship memoirs, but this might be one of the strangest and nastiest divorce narratives I've read yet (well, either this or Cleaving). It's seems odd to say I "liked it," but it was fascinating and sad.
Um, whoa. I have a penchant for train-wreck relationship memoirs, but this might be one of the strangest and nastiest divorce narratives I've read yet (well, either this or Cleaving). It's seems odd to say I "liked it," but it was fascinating and sad.
jlrmac's review against another edition
4.0
When I started reading this I didn't realize it was a memoir and wasn't sure I was going to finish it. Realizing it was nonfiction I kept on reading and got caught up in her story. Danielle certainly seemed to be swayed by attractiveness, and fell fast and hard. Three times and țwo children. She certainly was emotionally bullied by husband #2. But she also stymied intimacy between them. This book basically ended when her second marriage ended. I was glad she included enough information (Sometimes sprinkled throughout the story as future events) to let us know a little about her future with her children and her #3 love. It was upsetting to read how dysfunctional her life was, and how much she used "magical thinking "-not based on rational thinking. I have not read anything by Danielle or by her writer husband and don't think I'll seek them out.
iryna_me's review
3.0
It was a strange book to read. At times I thought the author did not give us the whole picture. I always had a feeling of something missing. I am sorry that she was so blind. I know from my own experience how awful it is to be around a bullying person and how it changes your own behavior to something unrecognizable. I just wished she got the help sooner. I wish somebody esle would give her a better perspective of what was going on. The ending feeled very rushed.
More...