| Title | : | Sleeping with the Enemy |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0099949105 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780099949107 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 332 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1987 |
ERIN PIZZEY
She is a stranger in a small town. She changed her name. Her looks. Her life. All to escape the most dangerous man she ever met. Her husband.
Sleeping with the Enemy Reviews
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4 ½ stars. Worthwhile read about a woman escaping a physically abusive husband. Fulfilling feeling at the end.
I saw the movie years ago. The book is better. One part of the movie annoyed me - stupid frustrating act of the mother. In the movie Martin visits the mother in a nursing home pretending to be a cop. He tells her that he needs to contact Sara to warn her about something with Martin. The mother stupidly tells him where Sara is. The book is different and better on this part. Sara does smart things. But Martin also does smart things to find her.
This book does not have much suspense until the end. But I liked it the way it was. If you want suspense and terror, read Stephen King’s Rose Madder which I loved.
I did not like what happened with Martin at the end. It was too convenient. I wish the author did something different to achieve the same end. But the ending was happy.
At times I felt like the author’s mind was wandering. A character is thinking about the environment, the smells, the sights, the feelings. Some of that was good, but some could have been cut. Some of Martin’s thoughts were too repetitive.
I love the plot of Sara taking action to change her situation. I was surprised that she nearly starved while waiting for her first paycheck. Weren’t there any food pantries or shelters? Was there a reason she avoided them?
I liked that Sara initially loved Martin, but after they married he changed. That happened to me twice.
Something I enjoyed, but it had very little to do with the plot were conversations about literature with happy vs unhappy endings. A couple of those follow. “Fellini says he never wants to make a film with a happy ending, because then people will go home and never change their lives. On a subconscious level, happy endings fool us. We think our lives will turn out nicely without our help, like the movie.” Mrs. Eaker said. “I like easy books - escape in them, you know? Murder mysteries. Historical romances.” “Do you really escape into them?” Sara asked. “Or are you just watching the characters do this or that, but when you’re through the world hasn’t changed at all for you?”
Me, I’m like Mrs. Eaker, I want happy endings. I wonder how many other readers make changes in their lives or the world after every book with an unhappy ending?
DATA:
Narrative mode: 3rd person. Story length: 322 pages. Swearing language: moderate including religious swear words, but rarely used. Sexual language: none. Number of sex scenes: 3. Setting: current day New York, Massachusetts, Iowa, and Nebraska. Copyright: 1987. Genre: relationship fiction with a little romance. -
For the first time in my life I have to say 'the film is better than the book.' I was really looking forward to a real psychological thriller like Sliver or Single White Female, but I was very disappointed. The characters are all a bit cringe-worthy, and I was surprised that a book written by a woman made so many allusions to the heroine's 'round breasts'. I think that phrase is used at least once a chapter. The bad guy isn't bad enough and the love interest is a sap. The writing is good in parts, especially when dealing with the issues at the heart of the book, but the ending is a bit dragged-out and unclear. I'm still not sure what the point is. This book was originally released around the same time as Stephen King's Rose Madder, which deals with a similar setting and story and leaves this book drowning in its shadow. Bit of a letdown all round.
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This was one of those sickening but compelling books that I just could not put down. I keep very few of the books that I read because while I have a book case in every room of my house, there's only so much room that I have, so I only keep the books that affect me deeply or that I think are very good (and they are not always one and the same). This book is on my shelf and will stay there.
The really creepy thing to me, though, is that the man she ends up with - the good guy - the guy who is not her husband and is supposedly not out to beat the living crap out of her whenever he feels like it is still physically abusive to her. There's more than one scene where he's manhandling her and physically abusing her when she doesn't do something he wants or he's frustrated with her. I could only think "Wow! Well that definitely shows that there's a cycle going on here - she leaves one jerk and takes up with another...." and yet the author never seems to catch on that a man who physically abuses a woman is not a good guy. -
One of those rare ocassions where the movie was better than the book. I'm not even sure why I finished it, perhaps to see how the ending differed from the movie.
So, I have a few complaints. The writing was so choppy and juvenile. The paragraphs would have 2 differen topics in them with no relation. And what was wrong with Ben, every sentence was about him being angry and mad. And what grown man thinks in terms of "trying to score" and "doing it?" So juvenile and embarassing. He also kept thinking how if he had a wife he wouldn't be saddled with mundane chores of every day life and he could write his book, yes what a wonderful catch he would be.
And why were both men so angry all the time? So unlikeable and angry and mean and they both absolutely hated women. Not once did either of them have nice thoughts about the whole race of women, it was horrible.
But possibly the most horrible thing about this book was her use of "catsup" instead of "ketchup." What normal person says catsup? -
Where do I begin? I read this whole book because I like the movie so much and usually the book is better than the movie. Yeah, nah.
It starts out fine. Sara Burney finds a way to escape her abusive husband. The author writes in a stream of consciousness manner, which appropriately conveys the frantic nature of Sara's predicament. The problem is, this is how the author writes every single character and this is how all the characters speak to each other, too, for the rest of the book. Even in the town to where Sara escapes and starts her new life. All of the characters are barely coherent. I have no idea how they understand each other.
Speaking of characters, there are several characters who seem to have major roles in this novel but their stories go nowhere and if you removed them completely the book would be mostly the same, but 100 terrible pages shorter.
Then there is Ben, the young college professor who lives next door to Sara's new place. He knows her for two weeks and is mad at her for not "putting out" after he makes her a couple of meals. Also he has some hangup about a relationship he had with a student of his who also didn't "put out". He calls these women "bitches" and thinks of how he wants to hit them (!). Just random angry thoughts about hitting women pop up all the time. And he is the supposed nice guy in this book. Sara wants so badly to make him happy, after 2-3 weeks having escaped her abusive husband. Right.
Everyone in this books talks to themselves, out loud, and yells "hell!" when they get frustrated. All. The. Time. Try yelling "hell!" out loud without laughing. It is not possible.
The book was written in 1986. I was a teenager then. This is not the 1986 I grew up in. The author seems to think all men want to be abusive, and some are and some just hold it back. She also seems to think all women actively want to make men happy all the time and have to consciously control this desire and they usually fail. Incredibly unrealistic for most men and women, no matter the decade.
I finished the book because I wanted to know if the ending was like the movie. It was not. It was lame. The characters were all lame and pathetic and it was difficult to empathize with any of them - even the abused wife. How badly does an abused female character have to be written that you can't even empathize with her? Yikes.
This book is bad. Just watch the movie. -
To everyone else Laura Burney has a perfect life except that her charming husband Martin is a cruel abuser. He purposely takes her on boating outings knowing that she is afraid of the water. The reader discovers that as a little girl she fails to save her brother from drowning while they are swimming. She decides to take swimming lessons in order to fake her death the next time Martin takes her out in the boat in a storm. She makes it to a small town where a drama teacher named Ben becomes obsessed with her but he cannot be her savior. Ultimately her husband tracks her down and Laura has to defend herself or be killed by him. The story has a lot of detail and is believable even though it is fiction. Price effectively creates suspense and a sympathetic character in Laura. I would like to be able to write clever fiction.
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The first time I read this book, I was horrified at the story, while being enchanted with the beauty of the storytelling. This time a single exchange stood out:
"You want respect," the young man said. "Your own job, your own house, your own money."
"Yes."
"That's what I want first." Larry put one ankle on his knee, lifted his bearded chin, and fixed blue eyes on Ben under heavy black brows. "Respect. Not the kind we 'give' women. I want the kind men get." -
Although initially excited to read this, I started to feel quite let down the more I read. The writing wasn't especially groundbreaking, and much of the book was filler in my opinion, it could've been a lot shorter. I think the story itself is great, but on this occasion I would have to say that the film is far superior. I was simply relieved when I turned the last page.
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Forget the movie. The book is genius. I read it every few years. For the story, the writing... And for the food. Really. The food is awesome. Read more about that here:
http://suannelaqueurwrites.com/litera... -
Okay I like the movie but upon reading the book, it does not do the book
justice at all. In fact, if you want a clear understanding of women and a
woman's view of men: read this book.
If you look at other reviews you'll see a lot of shocked people to see a
book so different than the movie. The basic premise is the same. Sara is
married to Martin, an abusive man who will kill her if she tries to leave.
She fakes her death pretending to drown then running away to rural Iowa
where she meets Ben. As she tries to put her life back together, Martin
hunts her down.
However the book is so much more than that. You see the enemy in the title
isn't Martin...it is all men.
If you've spent any time on the internet, ever, you've seen some stuff
about women, friend-zones, and many things are that just not okay. This
book isn't about a feminism agenda but about what woman are taught and
what they have to fear. You want to understand? Then this book is
timeless.
Sara decides to be alone because she doesn't want Martin to harm any one
else if he catches her. However Ben is persistent. A drama teacher at the
local collage, Ben is in a unique position to help. He just got out of a
relationship, that causes a huge amount of anger. Though this book was
written before the term friend-zone was term, that is basically what
happened to him.
Ben didn't want friendship but was willing to hang on in case he could
convince the woman to get past that. It failed because the woman needed a
friend, not a lover. Unwilling to be a friend to another woman who needs
it he almost takes it out on Sara, who points out the hate he feels
towards woman and that only if he hated her would he try to use sex "to
make her understand".
Later when he helps her dress as a boy to visit her mother in a nursing
home, Sara revels in the fact that she doesn't have to smile all the time.
As a woman people feel uncomfortable if she doesn't smile and finds that
doors are closed to her if she doesn't show her teeth.
Even at the end as Sara plans her future, reclaiming her house and her
life back east, Ben spends the time thinking because Martin is gone he can
now have her and make her his wife, juxtaposing female and male ideas of
happily ever after.
Still there is more. The books contains little vignettes of women and
their struggles. The woman who accidentally tips Martin off that Sara
could swim. He attacks her, forcing her and her lesbian lover to run for
their lives and hide with their parents who hate the fact their daughter
is gay.
There is woman in the nursing home who was raped as a young girl, forced
to have an abortion and then killed the man who raped her but is belittled as an old silly woman.
And so on. Price returns to these women at the end of the book so their
stories are not left behind.
The book was amazing. It's not the thriller which the movie was distilled
down to but a very different book dealing with women's issues in a world
where men are to be feared--our own. -
I have a relative who has been in a very similar relationship with an-ex husband, making this book seem so very real. It was a bit much - the movie is over in an hour and half, but the book continues on for quite a bit longer than that. But Nancy Price has a way with words, and as she writes about the emotional turmoil in each of the character's minds, it's as if she's been through it all herself. While the story was incredibly stressful to read, it hit the nail on the head with all aspects of an abusive man and his constant desire to control and manipulate. If you know someone who always dates these kind of men, this may be the perfect book for them to read, and perhaps Price's complete understanding of the situation will help them leave before it's too late.
Caution: It had plenty of swearing, sexual tension, and she comments frequently on her sex life with Martin prior to his hitting her - how it was different. A very adult book, please be cautious in recommending it, particularly to women who may have been abused and are trying to heal. -
I am very disappointed by this book! I have loved the movie for years and had this book on my read list for a long time, but I have to say the movie is much better than the book. Sara is married to an alcoholic, physically, mentally, emotionally abusive bottom of the totem pole computer salesman. She plans her escape as the book description states and creates a new life far away in a small town in Iowa. In the movie she becomes friends with a kind, caring, bright, unimposing man named Ben who lives next door and they strike up a friendship and begin to have feelings for each other. In the book Ben is possessive, conceited, chauvinistic, and even thinks of her as a bitch and a tease who he hates.
Ben's thoughts - "He was pretending she didn't exist. Women who wear sexy clothes and smile and then say 'Oh, no, not you' and slide right out of your life. Laura was probably laughing at him because he'd tried to score."
Ben's thought's - "If they were marries and she wanted to go on to get an M.A. in library science, he'd let her; she'd practically be living on campus because his house was so close. If he had a wife, he wouldn't have to take care of all the damn details and could write that book... here he was, out of bread and he had to make his own lunch."
Those are not even the worst of his thoughts. he says at one point that he would like to hit her. I have many problems with this book. I understand that this setting is in a rural town likely in the late 80's and therefore not as progressive, but he is an educated, well-read theatre professor who I'd imagine would not adhere to such outdated gender roles and societal expectations. At one point when she is crying and he sees how upset she is when she says she cannot have sex with him right then, instead of being empathetic to her or at the very least acknowledging that something is wrong, she calls her a "bitch" for not sleeping with him and wonders if she is in fact a "cold lesbian". I also find it hard to believe that she goes from one very abusive relationship that started out so well to another situation that gives clues that it could go down the same path. She quickly slips from one man to another.
To me this book seems to tell more about the writer than anything else. All the men, and I mean ALL, are described or portrayed as some combination of cruel, uncaring, possessive, abusive, drooling, uneducated, selfish, and demanding. Author Nancy Price seems to have a real distaste for men in general and I feel the novel left off with the main character safe from her old abuses but now in another tricky, and possibly even criminal, situation in which she will continue to live as a new person and maybe never safe from law enforcement discovering the web of lies and potential involvement. If the author intended the book to end showing that things never really change and people are the same everywhere, then she hit the nail on the head, but it was inferior to the film's storyline. -
The movie inspired by this book is one of my favorite movies, so when I realized there was a book, I couldn't wait to read it. This is one of the rare cases where the book is NOT better than the movie. The author seems to think that all men are rapists, abusers, womanizers, and obsessed with breasts. She mentions Sara/Laura's breasts ad nauseam and treats her like an object. Also, there appears to be no point to most of the other characters in the book. You've got the big three (Sara/Laura, Martin, Ben) and then other characters that she leaves by the way side.
I really liked the Ben character in the movie and was looking forward to learning more about him in the book. While the book version of Ben is a nice guy on the outside, he struggles with constantly thinking of Sara/Laura's breasts, wanting to have sex with her, being angry that she won't tell him her life story after only knowing him for a few weeks, being so sexually frustrated that he wants to hit her, and pouting because he's a single white male who thinks she should put out because he was nice to her.
Movie Martin is a scary psycho while book Martin is a pathetic cry baby with daddy and mommy issues and a tiny gun. He spends the majority of the book crying about his dead wife because her death means he can no longer own her, abusing some woman who apparently exists in the book only to show what a pathetic loser he is, and obsessing over why he's such a horrible person and blaming it all on his parents. His end in the book is much less satisfying than his end in the movie.
There are a lot more characters in the book than in the movie and I was looking forward to some deep character development. Nothing. There are a bunch of secondary characters that go nowhere. They are absolutely pointless to the story except for the woman that tells Martin about Sara's swimming lessons. Even then, she's in the book much longer than necessary and she goes nowhere. We get to watch her creepy obsession with being Martin's new, perfect wife and her apparently lesbian relationship with her roommate. The author uses her to show us more of Martin's pathetic character flaws as he sleeps with her once and cries then beats her. She gets a few lines at the end implying that she's grieving for Martin and that's it. Everyone else is completely pointless. We get just enough details to be interested in characters and then we get barely a resolution for them by the dragging on ending of the book.
The only reason I finished this book was because I started it. It was terribly written and I can't wait to forget it. -
Sleeping With the Enemy is a book?!?! Um, I watch this every single time it's on TV (Aaahhhhh, the cans are all lined up in the cabinet!) so I will clearly read this pronto. Thank you, Goodreads, for recommending this after I told you that I'm reading Beaches.
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This book is just great! It's about a woman's stuggle to get free of her abusive husband! It's shows how much strength a person can have! This book is amazing!
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‘That’s what I want first. Respect. Not the kind we ‘give’ women. I want the kind men get.’
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Oh goodness. I don't even know what I think about this book. The people who said the movie is better are correct. It wasn't bad, but it was kind of flat. I'm concerned about the author's experiences with men. She seems to hate them, based on how she writes them. In the movie, Ben is a kind, sympathetic man who truly cares for Sara/Laura and I really like his character. But he's sullen, bitter, misogynistic and mean in the book, yet he's supposed to be the romantic lead and I'm supposed to be happy Sara/Laura ends up with him in the end.
I suppose a woman who ends up with an abuser is like to end up with another one, though, especially when she never gets any kind of mental health help. So maybe that was the point? I don't even know. I don't know if the ending is happy or a cliffhanger because of that.
I'm ambiguous on this one. -
I have wanted to read this book ever since I saw the film with Julia Roberts, which I thought was excellent. There are a few minor differences between book and film but the story is basically the same - a woman's struggle to escape from an abusive relationship.
The writing is good, almost poetic at times and the story moves along smoothly. However, I felt there was a touch of remoteness about it, almost as though the author was not quite engaged with the characters. I think the film actually gives a better portrayal of the pain, the anguish and the emotions of the protagonists. I hovered between 3.5 and 4 stars, but because I finished it in a day, I decided it must merit 4 stars as it obviously held my interest! -
Oh my goodness. I snagged this at work remembering the movie, which I saw in the theater. It left such an impression on teenage me that I still vividly remember when Laura / Sara discovers her canned good labels all facing forward and realizes Martin has been there. (I just saw it got bad reviews, but I really liked it at 17.)
The book was about what I expected, except that even for 1987, the misogyny is horrifying! Ben, in his mind, seems as demanding and sexist as Martin; and the entire book ends with Ben’s thoughts about Sara being “in his bed.” I think it would have been much more enjoyable as a basic thriller without any of Ben’s thoughts whatsoever.
CW: domestic abuse -
I read this while in high school and was braver. lol! It's definitely a thriller, so scary in parts, but riveting. It's about a woman who is married to a very controlling and dangerous man. Over time, she decides she wants to leave him, so she plans out this very crazy plan to fake her death. There's a movie out about this as well starring Julia Roberts and it's every bit as scary as the book.
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Got 100pgs in and gave up, couldn't get into and finish. Writing just wasn't very good. Didn't find the storyline believable and her "disappearance" seemed unfinished, it wasn't thought out and any rookie detective would've been able to find her. Too much character jumping in one paragraph that I couldn't follow who was talking (and about nonsense filler stuff). Every other sentence talked about how pretty and thin Sarah/Laura was and how amazing her breasts were, it just obnoxiosly annoying.
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This was a good book. Gave more details about her life and the depth of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband.
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3,5 stars - English hardcover
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This is so disappointing! The film version is a guilty pleasure I've loved for years, and since I realised it was based on a book, I couldn't wait to read it. Unfortunately, it's actually quite boring. There's no tension or excitement, the pedestrian plot just plods along. We know where Martin is at all times, so we never really fear for Sara. I found it really difficult not to draw comparisons with the (far superior) film version. Martin isn't nearly as sinister and powerful as he is portrayed in the film, instead he's pathetic and weak. It's probably truer to life, but that doesn't make it compelling fiction. Laura/Sara's struggle to reconcile herself to the lies she's told and the love she's left behind added a lot of depth to her character I wasn't expecting.
Massive spoilers and rants to follow: -
I re-read this, since the author is a local celebrity and I'm helping with the current Cedar Falls Authors Festival. I lived in the Seerley Park neighborhood for 23 years, which is the setting for most of the book. One of the things I loved about living there, was knowing the history it had from this book and the movie by the same name. All of us knew which house was "Ben's" house, which one was "Sara's" house and which one was the author's house.
I think when I first read it (in the early '90's), I would have given it 4 stars. But it seems dated today, perhaps because of all the other suspense thrillers out there. The main thing that bothered me, was the ending. (Spoiler Alert) Not because it was completely different than the movie. It appears that Sara can move on to a new, wonderful life without any more questions asked. However: won't people who knew Martin on the east coast, wonder why he killed himself in Cedar Falls, Iowa? Seems there would be a follow-up investigation. -
This book was kind of a mess, and, although I normally never say this, I think the movie was done more skillfully. The author offers glimpses into the mind of both the "good" and "bad" male characters; to be honest, they didn't seem all that different to me. Both Martin and Ben harbor disturbingly juvenile, chauvinistic, demeaning thoughts towards women; neither made for very likable protagonists...perhaps that was the author's point. There were several underlying themes regarding gender roles and the choices that women make, often based on a domineering male in their life.
Nancy Price did a good job of describing the feelings of being trapped and desperate, as well as the counterpoint psychosis of an enraged, entitled man believing himself betrayed. Price also appears to have a genuine love of classic literature and describes Henry James beautifully; however, the dialogue tends to run on the repetitive side. I despised the ending. -
The book was far more complex than the famous movie with Julia Roberts about a battered wife faking her own death to escape her husband. The film was a thriller with a fairy-tale happy ending with the man who lives next door, in her new life, becoming her Prince Charming. In Price’s book, once she fakes her death and escapes her husband she creates a different, difficult life for herself as caretaker. However, she has but yet another man (much younger than her husband) that she also needs to stay clear of. Furthermore, her happy ending is a result of her manipulation of Prince Charming, who also has some serious women issues. In the end she escapes all men and secures a safe home for herself and her mother. The novel is about her self-preservation.
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I actually read this book when I was a freshman in high school. I had seen the movie (on tv) and LOVED it, so I decided to pick up the book. I loved the book as well, although the ending is different. I preferred the movie ending if you can believe it, even though the rest of the book was pretty amazing. Just about what you'd expect...intense, emotional, suspenseful, and it kept me on the edge of my seat.
