Crazy Love

Well written. I'm getting my degree in social work, I learned about Leslie Morgan Steiner from a video I had to watch for my family development and decided I wanted to read this book. It was disturbing to read about the abuse that happened to her. Although,I thought this was a really good book.

Thanks to Leslie Morgan Steiner I learned why some victims seem to be paralyzed in an abusive situation. Society tends to criticize women who stay in an abusive relationship. This book is sad and true testimony of the real life nowadays.

I loved this book, although at times it was frustrating to read! I bought it because I heard Leslie Morgan Steiner being interviewed on the radio. It's a wonderful insight into the world of an abusive relationship and why women stay in these relationships. Highly recommended.

A quick interesting read on an important subject. Very thought provoking. However while I'm glad she escaped her situation I can't but help feel that her dysfunctional yet privileged childhood put her at risk for accepting abuse as long as she did. That does not in any way excuse her husband's actions. He is a criminal.

The author did a fantastic job of making the reader feel what she was going through. She is one of the lucky ones that got out before it was too late and had the presense of mind not to have a child with this man.

Crazy Love expresses much with few words (well written with no fluff...good flow). Her story is honest and will make you feel something in a profound way, whether you've been abused or not. Harvard grad or high school grad, it doesn't matter. Abuse is abuse and Crazy Love will move you.

Leslie highlights her life before meeting her husband-turned-abuser and then takes us through the beginning to the end.
Anyone who wants to try and understand where abuse victims are coming from. We feel the fear, the shock, and the awe that Connor brings as Leslie recounts those moments. Connor was a handsome young man with a promising future to a dowdy potbellied louse in a span of 5 - 8 years. Leslie most likely had more stories but perhaps it slipped her mind while trying to write it out.

I read this cover to cover, if you know a victim have them read this. If you know of an abuser, have them read this.
It's not going to be so insightful and people are bound to pass judgement on Leslie and how the story can be read as exaggerated.
We have to sincerely include ourselves in her perspective to truly understand and appreciate how hard abuse victims
have to cope from these atrocities.

Lundy Bancroft wrote a book called "Why Does He Do That" and it is more insightful on why abusers abuse. Obviously in this book, Crazy Love, they're not going to go in depth with how an abuser develops however in doing so shows that Connor had made no effort to resolve through his actions. Predictably he ensnares another young lady to most likely abuser her too.
We should not feel sympathy for either partner, in doing so really disparages the true value. We should be able to interpret the situations and digest it in a way where we bring ourselves to a higher level of understanding.

It sounds strange, but I actually laughed out loud a few times when reading this. Ms Steiner knows how to put a comical twist on just about anything. Some readers have criticised her for mentioning Harvard too much, but I found her wry definitions of the trappings of her privileged life to be effective in pointing out the very things that a working class person would equate with a "perfect" life. It made me more sympathetic for her, as opposed for someone with these advantages who is oblivious to having them.

I remember reading somewhere that expecting others to make the right decisions in life is a form of arrogance, because it means assuming that everyone starts out with the same advantages. A basic lesson, easily forgotten in the dialogue about domestic violence.

From thinking "Why DO they stay?", I came to understand that although my family doesn't have Ivy League connections or a home on the lake, they have shown me unconditional love, enabling me to expect it in return if I choose to give it to another person. It broke my heart to see how the author desperately searched in all the wrong places for the love she didn't receive from her family. Even though he was also a victim, her husband was ultimately a predator who knew how to exploit that, exactly like a pimp does. Domestic violence-it's a conundrum, but this book helps clarify things.

I am pretty puzzled by the negative reviews here. "Crazy Love" is a courageous, unflinching look inside an abusive relationship. It is a difficult but well-written, powerful story.

Leslie Morgan Steiner does us all a service by illustrating the pattern she experienced in her abusive relationship, especially the small steps her partner took to draw her in--his charm and his neediness, their deep connection, and then the boundary testing and slow escalation of violence. When she did not call his early possessiveness and jealousy into question, he increased his control over her, through isolation by moving to Vermont, financial dependence when Leslie left her New York job, alienation of her family, and then increasing violence. He was a Wall Street financier, she was a Harvard grad and Seventeen Magazine editor. On the outside they looked like they had everything going for them. Behind closed doors, Conor punched Leslie, belittled her, and threatened her, daring her to leave at vulnerable times when she had nowhere else to go.

The author admits her blind spot: she deeply loved him and wanted to rescue him from his own violent past as an abused child. It took the realization that he truly could kill her to cut through her denial, call the police, and get help and get away from her abuser forever.

Leslie Morgan Steiner paints a full picture in her narrative: her own family had serious dysfunctions. She herself was a recovering addict, just out of her teen years and inexperienced in healthy relationships, who had only recently graduated from college when she met Conor. Her parents had their own divorce drama playing out while this was all going on. Leslie was vulnerable in so many ways and admits how deeply attached she allowed herself to become to Conor, even as he was hurting her. Telling the truth about abuse can be the first step to getting help, and I believe this story will help save lives by allowing other women to examine the truths about abuse, and then take steps to escape the violence.

One irony about this book: in many interviews Leslie Morgan Steiner has said that when we talk about domestic violence, she wishes we focused more on why abusers hurt the people they love. Her own memoir can only be told from her perspective, so it is about how she became pulled in and why she stayed for so long. But I applaud both her writing and her continued speaking out about the problem and cycle of domestic violence, which affects millions of American families every year.

Thank you.
It must have been difficult for the author to write about what happened to her; it was difficult to read in some places. But I take issue with the idea that we should feel sad for this man because he is damaged from the beatings his foster-father gave him. At some point in time, I bet the foster father was also an abused little boy. The cycle of abuse can only be broken by holding adults responsible for their behavior. Other men have suffered extreme abuse and don't beat their loved ones. I fear for every woman who comes into contact with Leslie's ex.

Crazy Love: A Memoir by Leslie Morgan Steiner

Leslie Morgan Steiner, a Harvard graduate with a coveted position at Seventeen magazine and a hip apartment in downtown New York City, seemed to have it all. She had already achieved sobriety, after determining she did not want to follow in her mother's alcoholic lifestyle. Her father distanced himself from the family by immersing himself in his career. In her early twenties, Leslie had youth and independence to encourage romance. The handsome and charming Conor showed up at the right time.

Had Leslie been aware of the behaviors of a potentially abusive man, she might have realized that all that he said and did were manipulations based to suit his needs. He was in it for himself. But she fell in love. She wanted to "help him overcome the years of abuse and neglect and pain...And if I could make him whole, we'd be one person. He'd be mine forever." The foundation for relationship was faulty; it would require insight and experience to recognize the potential for collapse.

The reader learns the signs of an abuser, at first subtle, such as snide remarks about friends, and then covert, such as demanding forfeiture of her career. Leslie cannot make a decision without mentally challenging herself first, asking, "What will Conor think?" or "How will Conor react?" The problem is, he is so unpredictable, she can never anticipate his reaction.

Woven throughout this story is a dog that Conor insisted on having, yet Leslie was reluctant to acquire. Leslie nonetheless became attached to the dog. It was interesting to read the details of the dog's behavior during the dynamics of the relationship.

The reader learns of unexpected betrayals during Leslie's most difficult times, as well as a surprise redemption. Also, the reader learns how hard it is to live with abuse, to survive the physical and emotional wounds, to leave, to get restraining orders, make impossible choices, to move out, to move on. This book was well-written, incorporating information, insight, and depth of characters. We ask, "Why didn't she leave?" and Leslie Morgan Steiner tells us. We might ask, "Why didn't he stop?" Too often, he can't.

This book reads like a psychological thriller, yet it is true life, and is only one of thousands of stories like it. Read it to know that someone you know may be at risk.

Twenty-two years old recent Harvard grad, Leslie obtains a job at the magazine Seventeen. On the Manhattan train she meets a nice Wall Street investment banker thirtyish Conor. They begin dating and become engaged. Together just under a year, five days before their wedding, Conor smacks Leslie for cursing at her computer. She goes ahead and marries him, but he continues to hit her. She stayed with him for two years before deciding love was not enough because he will never overcome his violent Boston childhood. The final straw was a horrific beating in which he left her unconscious.

Mindful of a profound scene from the Charlie Sheen movie Good Advice in which the advice columnist answers a woman who asks what to do as her spouse is physically abusive but her family insists she has to save her marriage while the columnists insists she should save her life. This is an intense from the heart memoir that looks at the psychology of why "battered woman" even highly educated females remain in potentially deadly relationships when intellectually they know they must leave. Well written and extremely deep, some of the true life scenes described are so stunning, a reader will want to deny they happened as Leslie Morgan Steiner provides a powerful look into abuse and why a person stays in a dangerous harmful (physically and mentally) relationship.

Harriet Klausner

I am divorced 2 months after a verbally, emotionally abusive marriage of almost 28 years. I feel like I wasted the best years of my life. I am so scared I will never experience real Love. My Ex did all of the things Conor did, except when Conor hit my Ex beat me with words. He would yell and tell me how bad I was at pretty much everything until I was a ball of tears and self blame. When my son came home with an opiate addiction , they joined forces in telling me what a bad person I was. My mother took his side as well as several of my friends. It took me so long to learn I did not have to be perfect to expect to be treated with respect. My friends taught me that I am love able, valuable and good. I have a long way to go to repair my self esteem, but I am able to put boundaries down. And that is a true miracle!

I really liked this book. I think the people commenting need to realize that at the time she was in her 20's. I know that the person I am at 50 knows a lot more than I did 25 years ago. I made a poor decision when I was 20 and stuck in the marriage for 7 years. I think that now I wouldn't have stayed 6 months, but I am not that person I used to be. I am stronger, I know who I am, and I certainly don't look for approval from anyone the way I did when I was a younger woman. I think people are too critical of her and are missing the point that just because we may be intelligent, we can still make bad choices when it comes to partners.

Thank you for your book! I hope you write another soon.

The casual racism of the author is appalling. I love a good memoir and was excited to read this one. From the very first page when the author is listing her accomplishments such as graduating from an Ivy league University, she adds to the list that everyone in her family is blonde. Ok, I let it go, the very next passage is about her roomate's waspy perfection. I still kept reading even though every couple of pages there is some kind of reference to the desirability of whiteness. I wanted to give it a chance but when I got to the passage where she meets her future husband, she writes that the Latina woman on the train next to her "smells like day old enchiladas" that was it. I threw the book right into the garbage.

Ugh. Crazy, indeed. A drug addled teen somehow makes it into the Ivy League, moves to New York, continues her incredibly superficial and directionless life then falls in "love" with a sociopathic abuser. This book does not add any insight into the world of domestic abuse.

This book should be required reading for all young women, who may try to make a relationship work even though there are all kinds of red flags.
I was wondering what her former husband's new wife and family would think of this book. It seems that he has remarried. Can this type of domestic violence ever be stopped ? Would be interesting to know.

Her book reads more like an accumulation of short vignettes with no common voice that ties them all together. It is sad because the author has such a powerful story, yet keeps a vast majority of it to herself. She reports her abuse almost completely void of emotion, which makes it difficult to really connect with the author. You want to connect so badly and just when you think you are able to really connect with her, she pulls out sarcastic one-liners after almost every recount of abuse. It would have been much more powerful to let the reader sit with the uncomfortableness of her abuse and share in her pain. Rather the awkward uncomfortableness you feel from her sarcastic remarks.
It is still worth the read, wait for it in paperback.

This book did an excellent job at making the reader feel like they were very much walking in the writers shoes without giving the spotlight of the story over to the abuser and left it to be about how she grew from this experience entirely. It was refreshing.

This book chronicles the story of an abused women whose husband beat her almost to death, and how she escaped him. Everyone should read this book, whether you've been in such a relationship or not. We all need to be able to recognise the red flags in our own relationships and the relationships of our friends, families and coworkers.

Its not the best literary work in history but the story is profound. Just read it!

This book is truly amazing. I was so impressed that she was able to write this story. If you have experienced anything like what she did, you will be nodding the whole way through. If you have not, you should thank God and read this book to understand why and how to help someone else. It is hard for those who know what it happening but like she said you can only get out when you are ready. I would definately recommend this book to everyone, men and women.

I finished reading this book yesterday. I found myself so engulfed in this story I couldn't put it down. Truly well written, I felt so connected to Leslie in this book. I still feel a connection to her a day after I completed the reading. It evoked such emotion for me as I too have been a victim of some sort of domestic abuse. To me, a book is truly a great read when you find yourself attatched to the character(s). I would definitely reccomend.