Crazy Love

A Memoir

De: Leslie Morgan Steiner

Narrado por: Tanya Eby Sirois

Leslie Morgan Steiner met the love of her life at age 22, soon after graduating from Harvard and starting her first job at Seventeen magazine in New York. She fell for his self-deprecating wit and street smarts - and especially his unabashed worship of her. They married and spent four years together. At first Leslie felt like the woman of his dreams.

Then she discovered her husband had been beaten as a child, taught by his parents that intimacy and rage danced together. He brought violence into their life, pouring coffee grinds over her hair, choking and threatening her with a gun during arguments. Several times, he came close to making good on his threats to kill her. Leslie's mistake is one millions identify with: she fell in love with the wrong man. It took one last terrifying attack to convince her that he would kill her one day if she let him.

Gripping and compelling, Crazy Love unravels the traps laid by love, mesmerizing listeners with insights into why smart women stay in unhealthy relationships - and how one found the courage to leave.

©2009 Leslie Morgan Steiner (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Awesome Read

This was Amazing and empowering story. I enjoyed the insight of her story very inspired

Great cautionary tale

This personal account of a period in the author’s life serves as a cautionary tale & as an assurance that women who experience abuse can get out.

Great Listen!

The story was done well. It would have been better if the author would have read the book for more feeling. Domestic violence is hard to go through even harder to write about as there are so many emotions while your going through the abuse and the aftermath.

Triggered

Brought back many bad memories but help me realize that our stories were the same!

Brought back memories

This book I really enjoyed. I was married to a abuser for 14 year I finally got out . I think everyone should hear this book it totally explains how they think and is very helpful.

Amazing

We read this for an assessment in our family violence class and I love it.

This is a Memoir…

Leslie wrote her own memoir about domestic violence. If you leave a review that she “talked too much about herself”, you’re the problem bc it’s a MEMOIR.
I wish the Interview with the specialist on domestic violence (DV) would have also been included in the Introduction / Prologue of the book. That was the turning point for Leslie after years of self-research & could be for anyone else struggling with DV that found themselves with this book in their hands / ears.
I do think the narrator wasn’t the best choice for this book bc she made the extremes of emotions feel icy / neutral / lacking expression when there needed to be more expression conveyed.
Leslie’s book did a great job alluding to the progression of the desensitization that happens over time in abusive relationships.
The self-talk after DV attacks justifying her husband’s behavior + the hope that she can fix / help him + the narrative that she has nowhere to go = the reasons she stayed. All of these book reviews are saying she didn’t tell us why she stayed. It’s def there. She embodies the cycle of feeling isolated + responsible + at fault.
My heart breaks that she felt she had to go it alone and that no one in her life would have been supportive or offered her a place to stay in times of need. Especially bc it wasn’t true in her case. Probz the same thing happening in most DV cases?
Grateful to have read this story. I agree there were some racial bias in this story but she also goes to great lengths to point out her own self awareness of her privilege. She draws comparisons to how WASPy her Mom is, that she was always surrounded by books, wealth / old money / history of her family and legacy VS. her husband’s lack there of. She tells us she knows she grew up with privilege, she doesn’t hide it. I do believe white privilege is what blinded her to the hurtful comments about other races / people— not an excuse but maybe the reason?
She comments that no matter how picture-perfect someone’s life may seem, we never know what’s happening behind closed doors. This applies to both her parent’s marriage & foreshadows her own marriage to come.
This was a very long book to get across the age old: “don’t judge a book by its cover” because DV can happen to anyone, anywhere.

Was a good listen

I love to listen while I’m at work, and this book was worth finishing when I got home.

Great bio

This riveting tale of how people hide their true selves when trying to get what they want. Love story gone wrong.

The performance doesn’t match the story

This is a gritty, honest story. But the voiceover sounds like it doesn’t go with the story at all. It sounds like a robot, the voice on a GPS navigation system or maybe Siri. Made it hard to listen to an otherwise great story.