Rose Colored Glasses

by Kate Mageau

Now a Best Seller!
#1 in Self-Help Books for Abuse, #1 in Trauma Psychology Books!

Healing begins with understanding what really happened in your last toxic relationship.

In Rose Colored Glasses, therapist and educator Kate Mageau takes readers inside the emotional landscape of abuse, showing how toxic relationships unfold through the joys, the terrors, and the gaslighting. Part true story, part self-help guide, this book reveals what really happens within emotional abuse, especially in the early stages when it’s hardest to identify.

Through raw storytelling and professional expertise, Mageau helps readers understand the hidden patterns of psychological abuse, why leaving is never simple, and how to reclaim their identity afterward.

Told in three parts and drawn from lived experience, this is more than a memoir. It is a survival tool for anyone seeking emotional abuse recovery and a new path forward.

For survivors of toxic relationships, emotional abuse, narcissistic abuse, psychological abuse, domestic violence, or intimate partner violence. Whether you are a survivor, a friend, or a professional supporting someone through their healing journey, this book offers clarity, compassion, and hope.

You’ll learn how

Recognize the real warning signs through examplesUnderstand why leaving is complicated, not a failureSupport yourself or someone you love without blame or shameRebuild your confidence and sense of self after toxic loveKate Mageau is a licensed mental health counselor and nationally certified counselor specializing in relational trauma and emotional abuse recovery. She is a domestic violence and intimate partner violence survivor herself, and she also trains other therapists to recognize and treat emotional abuse. With years of experience helping survivors, she knows that transformation comes from stories that make us feel seen.

For anyone who has experienced a toxic relationship, Rose Colored Glasses offers understanding, empowerment, and a way to see your past more clearly and your future more freely.

Companion workbook also Healing from Toxic The Workbook.

"Rose Colored Glasses struck me as both courageous and necessary the way you weave personal experience with professional insight offers survivors not only validation but also a practical path toward healing. It’s rare to find a book that feels at once deeply human and clinically informed, and yours achieves that balance beautifully."

"I absolutely LOVE your book!! I’ve highlighted as I've gone along, so I can go back to reference. And the validation I have felt from you saying WHY those actions were wrong has helped me immensely. Kinda mind blowing on some of them. Thank you for this book!!"

"Your dedication to helping survivors rebuild safety and self-trust, while also training other therapists to recognize and treat emotional abuse, shows how deeply you’ve committed yourself to this mission. That combination of lived empathy and professional expertise gives your writing a resonance that can truly change lives."

438 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 2, 2025

About the author

🌈 she/her
🧠Therapist + Coach
📚Healing from toxic relationships books
📝 writing, ADHD, careers
♾️ ADHD/Autism Assessments
🏳️‍⚧️Gender-affirming letters

Reviews

[Charlotte Heyes]

As a therapist, I often struggle to find resources that are both clinical and compassionate. Rose Colored Glasses achieves that balance beautifully. Kate’s insight into trauma bonding and gaslighting is profound, but it’s her empathy that makes the book transformative. I’ve already recommended it to several clients.

[Charles Mcguire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn’t a self-help lecture; it’s a mirror for anyone who’s ever doubted their own reality. Kate guides readers from confusion to clarity with such care. You can feel that she’s walked this path herself.

[Kendra Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who volunteers with women’s shelters, I see firsthand how hard it is for survivors to describe what they’ve endured. This book is going to help so many of them feel validated and understood.

[Cindy Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What struck me most was how Rose Colored Glasses bridges narrative and psychology. It reads like memoir but educates like a manual for emotional literacy. It belongs in every counseling program’s reading list.

[Camille Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Rose Colored Glasses felt like someone finally turned the light on in a dark room I’d been trapped in for years. Kate’s honesty made me feel seen, and her explanations of emotional abuse patterns helped me put words to things I’d only felt. This book didn’t just validate my pain, it gave me a language for healing.

[Shawna Balmelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful!

[Anne Malysheva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our group couldn’t stop talking about this book. Every chapter sparked personal stories and moments of realization. It’s one of those rare reads that changes how you understand relationships not just with others but oneself.

[Caitlyn Caraway · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t think this kind of book would interest me, but it completely drew me in. It’s written in a way that anyone can understand. The real stories, the emotional honesty, it all hits you hard but leaves you hopeful.

[Rob Milsom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our members connected with this book on a deep emotional level. The discussion around identity and self-trust was powerful. Kate Mageau doesn’t just tell a story, she starts a conversation that keeps echoing long after the last page.

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read an early copy, thanks to the Advance Reader Copy opportunity.

I could not put it down and finished it in one weekend.

Kate’s story not only showed me her bravery in telling all the secrets during this relationship, it also taught me how to respond correctly when I learn about anyone’s struggle in a harmful relationship.

I believe this book should be studied in high school, to better prepare everyone as they enter adulthood. Both as a tool for those who find themselves on the receiving end of abuse, and on the side of a future potential abuser.

Perhaps, if younger people understood what to be aware of early on, and be able to see what they’ve potentially been exposed to while growing up, they may choose a different path, or at least recognize when red flags appear.

Short of that, this is a must read for everyone. Whether one is in the middle of a similar situation, or has a friend who is, or who may encounter someone in the future. This book helps see how things can ever so slowly occur and be rationalized away, and offers an escape plan before the unimaginable happens.

In 2017, the CDC reported half of the killings of American women are related to intimate partner violence, with the vast majority of the victims dying at the hands of a current or former romantic partner. That is a horrible reality.

With our changing politics and problems, I can only guess this statistic has worsened.

This book provides a huge and necessary wake up call to everyone, and I applaud Kate Mageau for her triumph in saving her life and sharing her journey with us.

It was a heart wrenching read, but she taught me how to process all of it every step of the way.

[Judith Camann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of Rose Colored Glasses by Kate Mageau, LMHC, NCC

Reading Rose Colored Glasses by Kate Mageau, LMHC, NCC is like sharing lunch with your best high school friend after having lost touch soon after graduation. What makes this lunch special though, is picking-up the bestie connection. Mageau shares “How do I ‘Save As?’ I asked him as I face palmed myself on the inside. I may have played up the distress part a bit too far.” positioning the reader, the beastie, to listen, to hear her story of personal growth and learning through a mis-influenced relationship and failed toxic marriage.

As author, protagonist and professional, Mageau further prepares the reader for painful vulnerability, “This is my personal story of enduring abuse and how I eventually left.” However, the balance of Rose Colored Glasses is unique as it is so much more than memoir. It is a teeter-totter: on one seat her victim-self, her survivor-self on the other. The fulcrum, expressed in chapter explanations, is rooted in researched psychology of abusive relationships.

Furthermore, Mageau implements straightforward dialogue which creates an easy-to-read book allowing the reader emotional energy and space to digest the pattern & progression of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and Domestic Violence (DV). The chronological storytelling evolves, judgement free, with all the dark corners and hope a toxic relationship offers.

If you have never experienced IPV or DV, Mageau’s disclosure will draw you close. If you are a survivor, you will know too well Mague’s roller coaster and final decision to disembark. If you are a current victim, you will relate, perhaps embrace the self-help nuggets towards removing your rose-colored glasses; “Abusers minimize their partners feelings to make them feel that they are not as important as their own.”

Rose Colored Glasses is not a bow-tied feel-good book. While there is room for understanding, the bold truths including trauma, confusion and emptiness are bluntly exposed and examined.
“You can hold two truths at the same time.”
“You can?!”
“Sure. Can’t it be cloudy and sunny at the same time?”

In summary if you are a therapist seeking a personal inside look at IPV or DV, a victim seeking solace or a friend Rose Colored Glasses is a recommended read. It is the raw story of Mageau’s struggle and her therapeutic professional LMHC wisdom earned through her life experiences, degrees, and in-depth reflection. At the end, if nothing else, the reader will gain insights into how life can unfold in ways that are not always evident. But more importantly, alongside any doubt, fear, courage, or anticipation readers will be assured there are broad shoulders to stand on starting with Kate Mageau.


Judith E. Camann LMHCA, NBCT, CDP
www.Psychology Today /Judith E Camann
A Poet Studies for the National Counselor Examination – 2025

[Ohhheyimmandy📚🌿 · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unflinching look at love’s illusions, and the courage it takes to see clearly. 💜

Rose Colored Glasses- by Kate Mageau

🧠Blurb🧠

Healing begins with understanding what really happened in your last toxic relationship.
In Rose Colored Glasses, therapist and educator Kate Mageau takes readers inside the emotional landscape of abuse, showing how toxic relationships untold through the joys, the terrors, and the gaslighting. Part true story, part self-help guide, this book reveals what emotional abuse truly looks like, especially in the early stages when it's hardest to name.
Through raw storytelling and professional expertise, Mageau helps readers understand the hidden patterns of psychological abuse, why leaving is never simple, and how to reclaim their identity afterward.
Told in three parts and drawn from lived experience, this is more than a memoir. It is a survival tool for anyone seeking emotional abuse recovery and a new path forward. Whether you are a survivor, a friend, or a professional supporting someone through their healing journey, this book offers clarity, compassion, and hope.

💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Kate takes us into a first hand account of the emotionally devastating and tragic truth of how toxic relationships unfold.

This is not just a first hand account, it’s a guide revealing the hard truths behind emotional abuse, gaslighting, and domestic abuse, offering clarity, compassion and hope to anyone who has been affected by abuse.

Now, more than ever, is a book this raw, real and emotional needed.

In the US alone, the National Domestic Violence Hotline receives over 20,000 calls daily, and while incidents are down, the severity of aggravated domestic assaults has risen since 2019.

I can only imagine what those statistics look like now.

Part memoir, part guide, this book is both a story of survival and a roadmap for healing

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to the Author, for allowing me to ARC read this incredible book.

[Therese Mageau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: Kate is my niece and I read an advanced copy. That said, I want to talk about how this book has an unusual and clever format. It tells the painful story of an abusive relationship by alternating chapters about the "story" of the relationship (what the author did/felt/thought in the moment as the relationship progresses) and a psychological analysis of what was happening in the relationship from a therapeutic perspective. So that you get the naiveté and blinders (the rose-colored glasses) of the young woman in love who doesn't see clearly the signs of abuse and then doesn't know how to leave when she does, and the therapist then showing the reader what the warning signs were and why it was so hard for Kate to leave the abuse. The book is deeply compassionate and non-shaming; the author is clear to point out that people who go through these kinds of relationships are survivors, not victims, and explains how easy it is to get sucked into the vortex of an abusive relationship, i.e., that it's not some special kind of person who can fall in love with and then find it hard to leave an abuser. It can happen to anyone. Kate was brave to tell her story, and creative in the way she tells it. This book could be very helpful to anyone who may be facing a similar situation.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Mageau’s Rose Colored Glasses opened my eyes to how abuse hides in everyday dynamics, and made me reflect on my own patterns as a partner and friend. The book reads like an adventure romance with surprising vulnerability and honesty, and each chapter ends with Kate’s reflections as a present day therapist, naming the warning signs with clarity and care.

What stood out most was the structure: memoir first, then an explanation section that highlights key behaviors many of us miss while wearing those “rose colored glasses.” Those sections surprised me and challenged how I show up, not only with my wife, but in every relationship. Kate brings awareness and mindfulness to the little things we don’t usually notice.

I had to pause at times—especially around the wedding chapter and the escalation that follows. The manipulation, the rationalizing, the slow erosion of self—it’s emotional and all too real, and Kate tells it without sensationalism or self-pity.

In the end, she balances storytelling with education and heart, grounding everything in lived experience. Anyone trying to understand trauma, healing, or the courage it takes to leave should start here.

I had the honor of speaking with Kate on my podcast, Standing Nowhere; the same presence comes through on the page.

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Powerful, Brave, and Necessary Story

Rose Colored Glasses is a heartfelt and courageous book that turns pain into purpose. Kate Mageau shares her story with honesty and grace, creating something that feels both deeply personal and universally meaningful.

As someone who knows Kate personally, I found this book to be a reflection of her courage, empathy, and commitment to truth. It takes immense bravery to turn one’s lived experience into a tool for awareness and empowerment, and she’s done that so beautifully.

What stands out most is how skillfully she balances pain with hope. Rather than simply recounting trauma, she offers insight, understanding, and ultimately, a message of resilience and healing. Her story serves not only as a memoir but as a lifeline and resource for anyone who has endured similar circumstances — or for those seeking to better understand them.

I highly recommend it to readers seeking hope, understanding, and the strength to see beyond the surface.

[Machelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rose Colored Glasses is a mix of memoir and a primer on recongnizing and understanding emotional abuse and intimate partner violence. Mageau draws readers into an intimate and honest reflection of her relationship with an abusive partner, including how she was able to get out. Along the way she offers readers explanations and information that highlight patterns typical of abusive relationships. Additionally, she offers tips and information for getting out, getting support, or offering support to others. Mageau writes with authenticy, vulnerability, honesty, and warmth. Survivors of abuse, those who think they might be in an abusive relationship, or those supporting friends or family members in abusive relationships will find Mageu's story relatable as well as informative.

Note - reviewer recieved a free, advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for their honest review.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mageau has written a tour de force. This book is a relatable and safe exploration into a personal story with domestic violence written by a seasoned trauma therapist. It is beautifully organized and moves between storytelling and education around the warning signs of toxic relationships. She gives trigger warnings, as well as guidance for unpacking the challenging aspects of the story. We are in good hands. I recommend this book for survivors, friends of survivors, therapists, bodyworkers, and anyone working in healing professions. It is a resourceful and beautiful book.

[Seth Tvoor · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a moderator, I’ve guided many book discussions but Rose Colored Glasses sparked one of the most honest and emotional conversations our group has ever had. Members shared personal stories. Kate Mageau’s approach part memoir, part guide opened a safe space for reflection and healing. It’s not just a book; it’s an experience that helps readers understand the invisible wounds of emotional abuse and begin to see themselves with compassion. This will stay on our recommended reading list for a long time

[Ethan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The FB discussion really opened my eyes, especially when everyone was talking about how hard it is to recognize emotional abuse while you’re living in it. That’s exactly why Rose Colored Glasses grabbed my attention. The way Kate Mageau explains those hidden patterns, while also sharing her own story feels so real and validating. It’s the first book I’ve seen that actually makes you understand the ‘why’ behind staying, leaving, hurting and healing. Honestly, after that conversation, this feels like a book someone in the group or someone they know truly needs.

[Yam Recht · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of this book and I highly recommend it.
Something I really liked was that after every chapter there was an explanation as to what exactly is the abusing behavior. The story was written in a first person Pov (the author) and her personal life story with an abuser which made me sympathize with that.
All in all I recommend everyone in their dating phase, especially in their twenties as i to read it and recognize the signs :)

[Goodluck Friday · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly didn’t expect Rose Colored Glasses to hit me this hard, but even the pieces I’ve read feel like someone finally putting words to things so many of us carry silently. Kate Mageau writes with a mix of truth, pain and healing that feels almost therapeutic. This is one of those books someone out there really needs to read the kind that makes you feel seen in ways you didn’t know you needed.

[Carla Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

What struck me most was how Rose Colored Glasses bridges narrative and psychology. It reads like memoir but educates like a manual for emotional literacy. It belongs in every counseling program’s reading list.