RfP...Saturday?

I've kind of let Reading for Pleasure Wednesday slide. Hey, Dr. Crazy, who started the whole thing, has let it slide, too. I haven't been reading that much, and I'm usually busy in the middle of the week, and insert your own excuse here.

However, last night I finished Black and Blue, by Anna Quindlen, and I was blown away. It's a remarkable book, that gets inside the head of a battered wife as she flees to make a new life. I suppose most of us have had that question: "How could she do it? Why did she stay with him? What was she thinking?" Well, Anna Quindlen has some insights. As in One True Thing, her characters are achingly real. The reader can understand this woman, her fears, her motivation, her life.

I didn't think the writing was quite as remarkable at the writing in One True Thing. I didn't reread whole passages just to savor them. But the story is every bit as remarkable. Quindlen portrays her character as a perfectly ordinary woman with a horrible, dark secret, and makes us really believe that she is not so different from you and me.

I am now an official Anna Quindlen fan. I think I'll stop by the library today and pick up my next Quindlen book.