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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
An up-close account of the life of an abused woman and her attempts to escape from her husband. Riveting, well-written, recommended.
This is such a sad story.
Fran Benedetto is a nurse and a mother and a battered wife. She hides the bruises and tells her son she had another accident. Children know though, they hear the yelling and sounds of things breaking and while they don't understand completely they know something isn't right. One day Fran had enough and she contacted a group for helping battered women. They relocated Fran and her son and she became Beth Crenshaw. Ten year old Robert made new friends but he never really settled in because he wanted to go home. He missed his father and wanted to know why they couldn't just go home. One day he called his dad and his father told him his mother had lied about him. He just didn't know what he had set into motion.
Fran Benedetto is a nurse and a mother and a battered wife. She hides the bruises and tells her son she had another accident. Children know though, they hear the yelling and sounds of things breaking and while they don't understand completely they know something isn't right. One day Fran had enough and she contacted a group for helping battered women. They relocated Fran and her son and she became Beth Crenshaw. Ten year old Robert made new friends but he never really settled in because he wanted to go home. He missed his father and wanted to know why they couldn't just go home. One day he called his dad and his father told him his mother had lied about him. He just didn't know what he had set into motion.
Anna Quindlen is a really great writer, although I didn't love this as much as the first one I read by her. This book makes you feel a lot for Beth/Fran, and although I didn't find the ending dissatisfying, it did leave me wondering. I think it does a good job of answering both why women get into abusive relationships and why they don't leave.
Didn't love the use of the r word (I think only once), although it may have been less of a slur when the book was published in the late 90s.
Didn't love the use of the r word (I think only once), although it may have been less of a slur when the book was published in the late 90s.
I loved this book! I put off reading it, even though I'm on an Anna Quindlen kick, because I didn't think I wanted the heavy subject matter. I hate reading books that make me feel worse after I've read them. In Anna Quindlen's form, the book is thoughtful and introspective without being gruesome. I like the way Quindlen gets you inside her characters heads. I didn't finish the book thinking that that the main character (Franny) was weak, but that she was a strong woman. I thought it was an honest look at an abusive relationship from the eyes of the abused spouse. Read it, and don't worry about being inundated with horrific abuse scenes. They are few. I liked the 'finding yourself' core of the story, and enjoyed the novel very much!
Although the writing is not quite as strong as her later books, this novel covers the important topic of domestic abuse well. It follows Fran, later Beth, who finally realizes she must leave her abusive husband. They have a son and she realizes her husband, also a police officer, will never allow her to leave, especially with their boy. So she and the 10 year old boy flee and set up a new life in a distant state. The story of Fran and Robert settling into this new life in the first year is interspersed with her memories of why she so loved her husband and why she continued to stay for so long, even though as a nurse she counseled other women to leave. It shows the relational part of domestic abuse and brought to life the difficulties and losses all around.
Liked a lot about it. Didn't like a lot about it. Just never really gelled with the protagonist.The ending was very unsatisfying to me.
emotional
informative
medium-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book was hard to read. Domestic violence often is a silent epidemic. I’m glad this author decided to tell this story.