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I found this book through my Twitter feed and the blurb made it sound exellent; so I downloaded it to my Kindle. The author Merry Freer said it was a “love it or hate it” kind of book.

Well, I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either. I started to grow weary about halfway through, and then I started skimming, to see if I could get to some juicy parts. When I got to the 3/4 mark I gave up, with the reasoning that I have many other novels in my bullpen to get to, and life is too short to waste on bad books.

The story is based on true events; the author is manipulated and abused by both her boyfriend and her therapist. I didn’t get to the part that explains why the police were called to Mark’s (the boyfriend) house, but I really didn’t care either. See, the book starts off with the author waiting for the police to go to Mark’s house, and she feels guilty about it. The story then starts as a flashback–how she got a divorce, how her therapist helped her through the bad times, how she meets Mark, a handsome doctor–and then it just gets strange. Mark treats her well, then dumps her; the therapist offers to start seeing Mark, they get back together; the therapist seemingly tells the author “secrets” of what happens in Mark’s therapy sessions; and so on.

The first alarm bell was when I read about the unethical behavior of the therapist. Then I wondered why Freer would stay with a man that was so distant, manipulative, untrustworthy, and deceitful. I felt truly sorry for her, that she wasted her time with Mark when it would have been better for her to be alone. It seems like she was desperate and felt unworthy of someone better. It was annoying to me to keep reading about how she felt bad because of how he treated her, yet she was so in love with him and thought that things would become better somehow. Mark was a drug addict that cheated on Freer multiple times. Who would want to stay with a man like that? Maybe if I wasn’t so frustrated in her inability to get this guy out of her mind I would have kept going, but there was just a little too much of “I loved him so, why did he treat me like this? Why isn’t he calling me? Why is my therapist asking me to do this?” I know the idea of the book was that things were so off kilter, but I have no patience with hearing about how men take advantage of women. Since I didn’t finish the book, I can only hope that Freer has exorcised her demons and has found happiness either on her own, or with a real man who knows the meaning of love.

Want to read this yourself? Click [easyazon_link asin=”B00NO0VV7E” locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”gimmethatbook-20″ add_to_cart=”yes” cloaking=”default” localization=”yes” popups=”yes”]here[/easyazon_link] to purchase it. Let me know what YOU think.