The Best Part of Blogging--Free Books

I recently read Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner. Yeah, that's right--if you clicked on that link you saw that the book won't be available until March 31, 2009. How have I already read it then? That would be because I've discovered that getting bloggers to read and blog about your book is apparently a new trend among publishers, because this is the second book I've scored as a result of saying "I'm a blogger--can I have a free copy?" Who ever said that blogging is a stupid waste of time?

Anyway, I have to say I had mixed feelings about the book. It's about Leslie Morgan Steiner's horrible first marriage to an abusive guy. Taken as a whole, the book does provide great insight about why women stay in abusive relationships. Even though she was from a rich, waspy family, her self-esteem was sufficiently in the toilet to keep her wedded to a guy who damn near killed her.

The thing that kept me from really liking this book was the fact that she makes such a big deal about how she was from this rich, waspy family. She constantly refers to her privileged upbringing and how, in spite of it, she was doing drugs and screwing around starting when she was like 13, then had a huge eating disorder, then was married to this crazy wife-beater. Maybe this is small-minded of me to say, but it's kind of hard to feel sorry for someone who, in the course of telling the story of her life as a battered wife, refers incessantly to Harvard, summer house, money, private school, money, Harvard, waspy parents, summer house, Harvard, private school...oh, and did I mention Harvard? Trust me--she mentioned Harvard.

Yes, we get it--even though your life looked perfect it wasn't. The thing is--we still kind of hate you for your charmed life, so our level of sympathy for you isn't sky-high. Or maybe that's just me being a bitter bitch and anyone else reading the book would feel more sympathy towards her. Like I said, though--overall it's an inspiring story about beaten down wife getting a business degree and becoming a huge success and finally being able to free herself from the abusive relationship. The thing is, something about the dynamic of the "I grew up rich and privileged, then went to Harvard, then went to business school, then made a ton of money in high-power jobs, and now am famous and writing a book" is less compelling than say, a person who grew up poor or stupid THEN went on to become rich and famous. You need the first part of the equation to get the feel-good thing going; without it it just comes off as gloating and "yay for me!"

Take a movie like Pursuit of Happyness. The reason it's a total tear-jerker and near-perfect movie is that it has that whole "success in the face of extreme adversity" theme going on. It wouldn't be nearly as good a movie if he'd been raised rich and privileged, then done a brief stint on the streets, then gone to business school and become rich and famous. Oh, and had his dad pay for business school.

Anyway, my point is the book was good and I would definitely recommend it, but it had a little too much of a "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" vibe for my taste.