Black And Blue Summary

Summary of the Book
The novel Black and Blue is about the new life of Elizabeth M. Crenshaw. Her formal name was Frannie F. Benedetto. She was once a nurse back in Brooklyn where she lived with her abusive husband Bobby Benedetto, who is a police officer, and son Robert Benedetto, who is now name Robert Crenshaw. The book starts with Elizabeth “Frannie” escaping the abusive life with her son inside a train station. She had no plan, and she was waiting to learn her next move from a woman who helped battered women escape their husbands. Elizabeth biggest fear was being found by her husband once she left. Her son had no idea where him and his mom were going, and he wasn’t aware of the harm his father did to his mother. She stayed in her situation …show more content…
Women who are being abusive are very in denial about the problem, and they make up many excuses to why they are still in these relationships. Such as, I staying because of the children, or he doesn’t mean to hit me because it was my fault. I also learnt that there is support groups out there to help women in domestic violence relationship escape their problems. This book made me realize I keep saying what I will do if I was in this type of situation, but I really don’t know what I will do if I was in these women shoes. A question that was raised was what if the story was the other way around, and the wife was the abuser. How would have this story played out? My opinion of this book is that I have mutual feelings about it. I mean the book overall was a great book, and very heart warming. Elizabeth took all the steps needed to escape her husband from his abusive ways. However, what I didn’t understand why she had to give up everything to get away from one person. A person who job is to protect the people of his community. Why wasn’t Bobby stripped of his life? It’s sad that this woman and her child had to change their identity just to have a better life. Anna Quindlen really makes her readers think while reading this