A Beautiful, Terrible Thing

"I understand her husband was ultimately a bad guy, but I kept feeling like she never got to the meaty, juicy part of the misdeeds. Left this reader wanting more. Also, she was clearly an idiot."

"This starts out a tad slow, but it is non-fiction after all. Towards the end, it really picks up pace and reads more like fiction, making you pause in shock when you remember this is someone's life."

"This story hit so close to home and really helped me to feel less alone through a very difficult time in my life. It is a story of resilience and empowering strength in getting out of a narcissistic sociopathic relationship."

"January read…a better understanding of self"

"Lots of craft elements that should've been addressed during developmental editing, but does a decent job of capturing the emotion of the relationship."

"I should have taken the warning I was given that this book wasn’t interesting.<br/><br/>I read this months ago because I had lent (at the time) a random person in my math class One Last Stop, and they just happened to have this on them. They told me that they didn't like it that much, but maybe I'd like it. Coincidently, I am now really good friends with this person. <br/><br/>I don't remember too much about this book, except that the switching chapters between past and present didn't work for me. It might work for some people and it's even worked for me in other books (<i> People We Meet on Vacation </i> for example), but I was so bored with the story that when any momentum picked up only to be cut off by the next chapter being told in the past, it just made me sigh and wish this book was over. <br/><br/>Also, the Seb kid? In WHAT world does an eight-year-old talk like that? I was considered a pretty gifted child (who suffered burnout in seventh grade because my advanced math class was the first time I had ever scored below an 89 on a report card in my life), my ten-year-old cousin is considered a gifted child, but we don't talk like thirty-year-old law-school participants. His dialogue was so jarring and it just felt like the author couldn't remember exactly what he said so she filled in blanks without considering that Seb is a child. <br/><br/>The whole 'oh, he's a sociopath thing was so overdone. Like, the resources she used to find this out, I wouldn't be able to use in writing my current essay on Lord of the Flies. This author is not a medical professional, so why is she trying to diagnose people using Wikipedia and online message boards? Do you want him to take a 'Am I a Sociopath' quiz?<br/><br/>All of my grievances put aside, I'm not trying to undermine what this author experienced. Yeah, her husband treated her like ****, I don't deny that. I'm happy she got out of that marriage while she still could and wish her the best of luck on raising her daughter. I felt like this shouldn't have been made into a book, though. Maybe a blog post or something. But there are so many books telling the same story that it doesn't really <i> need </i> to be in published format. <br/><br/>I can't recall anything I liked regarding this book, but I'm writing this review, like, six months after I read it. I remember not absolutely hating it though, so I don't think a one-star is fitting, so it'll just sit at a mediocre two."

"This book I was able to empathize with in a lot of ways. Being from a string of bad relationships in the past I was able nod my head right along with what I was reading. "

"This was an amazing book. It broke my heart to read but I couldn’t put it down. Easily one of my top 5 reads of the year. "

"My heart ached with anticipation and sorrow from beginning to end. "