If a book doesn't grab me in the first 30 or so pages, I am done with it, but I didn't want to put this book down. As I read about Diane's struggles, I got angry at Charles and how he controlled and abused his wife. This is a powerful and emotional book. I recommend it highly.

I received this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, She Writes Press.

This book is written as a memoir by the author. It begins with a scene where Charles, the author’s spouse, apparently does something to an unwanted cat. It takes much of the book to find what happened to the cat and understand Charles’s anger.

The author starts her story with meeting the love of her life and marriage. However, Charles’s relationship with his parents is rather estranged: “I really cannot tolerate being around them for too long.” He was “disdainful of his parents, mostly his mother.” “If my parents got into a fiery crash when they were coming to visit us, then we’d get my inheritance sooner…” This makes the reader what kind of person Charles is. Little nuggets of Charles’s issues are dropped early in the book; for example, as a three year old child, he put a kitten down the sewer and never followed up on it. Ms. Pomerantz speaks to the sacrifices she made through the courtship participating in Charles’s interests and foregoing opportunities for herself.

After they are married, there were problems with pregnancies. She “desperately wanted a family that I was willing to take all of the responsibility for our fertility problems.” They go through fertility treatments, adopt a daughter, Elisabeth Ann, and are able to have a biological son, Samuel Ian. When Ms. Pomerantz fights cancer including stem cell transplant, Charles is unsupportive and doesn’t come to medical appointments or the hospital. He “would never think of canceling patients” to be supportive and help her through the cancer treatments. “He had no clue about love or compassion; it was as if there was nothing inside him. He was an empty shell.” She makes it through the cancer treatments but the marriage is in shambles. “He is so controlling…” and “…always had to be right.” Charles had an extramarital relationship with a patient. He was constantly conniving and belittling Ms. Pomerantz.

While I understand the bitterness Ms. Pomerantz felt without her husband’s love and support during a major health crises and the infidelity, the book began to feel like a major husband bashing. “He was so envious of the support I got from my friends…”

The book is riddled with her negative emotions and trials with life. When the positive points were raised early in the book, there was foreshadowing of what was to come with Charles. It repeated the bad husband drudgery.

At a certain point, it felt like more and more of the same. Ms. Pomerantz makes her point of view about Charles very clear. “I also have a much deeper understanding of what it means to be in a relationship with a narcissist, with someone for whom I could have been anyone, as long as I met his needs.” One has to wonder what the other side of the story may be. After all, there are two sides to every story.