Lost in the Reflecting Pool: A Memoir

by Diane Pomerantz

When Diane, a psychologist, falls in love with Charles, a charming and brilliant psychiatrist, there is laughter and flowers—and also darkness. After moving through infertility treatments and the trials of the adoption process as a united front, the couple is ultimately successful in creating a family. As time goes on, however, Charles becomes increasingly critical and controlling, and Diane begins to feel barraged and battered. When she is diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, Charles is initially there for her, but his attentiveness quickly vanishes and is replaced by withdrawal, anger, and unfathomable sadism. What Diane previously thought were just Charles' controlling ways are replaced by clear pathologic narcissism and emotional abuse that turns venomous at the very hour of her greatest need.

A memoir and a psychological love story that is at times tender and at times horrifying, Lost in the Reflecting Pool is a chronicle of one woman's struggle to survive within—and ultimately break free of—a relationship with a man incapable of caring about anyone beyond himself.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Psychology, Autobiography, True Crime, Biography Memoir, Audiobook

337 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 10, 2017

Reviews

[Mike Keren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pomeranz's memoir is a chilling and gripping tale of a marital hell. What makes her book send out from other abusive relationship memoirs is that Pomeranz herself is a therapist. "Physician heal thyself." This talented professional finds herself at the whim of a pathological narcissist who she has fallen in love with. It takes a life threatening illness and her husband's total lack of empathy the situation to get her to wake up to the reality of what she is living through.
This si a debut work, and the author show promise for her future writing. Her commentary on the narrative gets a bit repetitive at times and the book would've benefitted from another line and story edit to cut down on this, but it is a minor complaint about a wonderful new book.

[Krista · Rating 5 out of 5]

Encouraging

A true story about survival. Surviving cancer and an abusive relationship. She is a true fighter. She explains the damage that an abusive relationship can do to a person perfectly. I was also I'm that situation and not many people understand why you can't just leave. Thank you for writing this,it has helped me in my healing.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book really makes me appreciate my husband. We may get on each other's nerves at times but he cares for me. I appreciate Diane sharing her story. In a way I would imagine that telling this story is freedom like a singer writing a song of heartbreak.

Diane went through a lot with infertility issues and than receiving a cancer diagnosis. I was shocked when Diane's former husband was unsupportive towards Diane's treatment and cancer recovery. However, the most shocking was when one day Charles tells Diane that he is tried of hearing about her cancer. Diane found her strength again to leave her husband and emerge a new, stronger person. Lost in a Reflecting Pool is a strong memoir that does not leave you sinking.

[Julie (Bookish.Intoxication) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was sent a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, this novel is a psychological journey that rips your heart out then mends it with the love, honest and innocence of children.
Diane's journey is one that no one should have to go through, one that even the strongest person would have trouble facing, yet she does it with such courage and strength that it is awe inspiring.
This book make me laugh, it made me cry and it made me think, and that is the power of this book, it inspires thought from the reader.
The writing style of this book, draws you in from the very first page, you want to learn more, to see the extent of Charles's manipulation and how the end is resolved.
I am a big believer in karma and that you get out of life, what you put in. The positive vibes, Diane put into life, even in the face of incredible adversity worked in her favour. And my tiny bit of karma was dealt in SPOILER Charles losing his licence, something that needed to happen.

This is an incredible book, it gives you strength to read about someone else's strength and determination to keep on going, to live when everything is falling down around you. A must read!

[Gwen Velsor · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took a lot of courage to write such a vulnerable book. While the themes are pretty dark, Diane sheds light on aspects of abuse and mental health that we seldom see shared in such an intimate way. Be prepared for an emotional roller coaster. An intimate account from an inspirational woman.

[Laurie Buchanan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This is a NON-fiction book, not a psychological thriller." I had to remind myself of this fact at every turn of the page. LOST IN THE REFLECTING POOL is a well written, captivating, first-hand account of a long-term, abusive relationship between a psychologist wife (author, Diane Pomerantz) and a psychiatrist husband; it's downright frightening.

[Cheryl Whitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed on Behalf of http://bookaddict.live,
The first thing I have to reiterate is Lost in the Reflecting Pool is a true account of one woman’s struggle to come to terms with living with a pathological narcissist, and her struggle to survive and recover after nearly 20 years being brainwashed into his way of thinking. You can read the synopsis, so I not going to repeat it.
Not only is this a harrowing account, it is also addictive listening, and I had to remind myself this is real life not fiction with a quick fix. I have worked with women and some men in abusive relationships, and helped them through some terrible times. Abuse is not just physical, the years of mental abuse is sometimes worse, because you believe “it must be me “.
Diane’s account affected me, I felt like I had been pulled through a ringer. Riveting listening that stayed with me for many days. The upside I told myself was Diane has survived and now she only looks forward. Great book Diane. The narration was so smooth, I wasn’t pulled from the story once. Katie Mitchell narrated this book faithfully and with heart.

[Brigid Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author a professional psychologist, shares her journey with a narcissistic husband, who just happens to be a psychiatrist. She bravely reflects on the harrowing journey she traveled through infertility and IVF treatments, the increasingly strange behaviour of her husband, her cancer diagnosis and the realization that in order to survive she must break away from his craziness.
This is a well written and thought provoking memoir that makes compulsive reading. Highly recommended.

[Tony Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readers begin in the author’s bliss with an uncanny sense after her meeting “the one”. Despite my superficial differences (male not female, UK not US etc), I immediately walked in Diane Pomerantz’s shoes, firmly gripped by the continually unfolding, escalating challenges. Not to spoil those, I’ll simply point to the title: “reflections”. These from a partner can be “crazy-making” by distorting and stealing one's self-belief.

In the midst of this madness, a partner’s inconsistency can be baffling, his sense of entitlement and predilections to excess pathological, and his faint gestures toward sharing the parenting woeful. I was caused to reflect myself on what men or women expect when they marry, the unconscious pulls from our historic gender roles and the allures of money, lawyers and therapists on the other side of the pond, which despite their implied promises of liberation impose extra kinds of dependency.

Recovery in such an environment is impossible, but this one refuses to give up. She confronts what-she-wanted-her story-to-be to arrive at the realism of what-it-really-was. We are left with far better than courage and hope, more like admiration for her limitless resourcefulness and the strong friendships she built to change her circumstances and produce a future for the children.

As for forgiveness, reading this I realised anew that each side in a conflict must be willing to accept the reality of the other, and this isn’t always possible. I shared the author's desire to move on and her use of memoir writing as therapy towards this. In my humble opinion, Diane’s writing has earned the prizes and top reviews she’s been awarded. Highly recommended.

[Svetlana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book rather frustrating. While the subject matter is quite disturbing and unsettling, Diane's passive victimised attitude annoyed the crap out of me. Sometimes I felt like grabbing her and shaking some sense into her. Diane's a psychologist, yet she doesn't seem to notice or understand anything around her. How can a person be so oblivious? Thank God for her friends and her ever supporting dad, otherwise, I feel, she'd still be married to Charles today.
Not a happy uplifting read.

[Jennifer Allsbrook · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing story of perseverance and strength. For my full review check out https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/vie...

[srijoni · Rating 4 out of 5]

With loads of courage and mental strength, Dr. Pomerantz has made her real-life story come alive by her rattling memoir. Although it is beyond my power to judge this book and give a review for it, I’ll share my honest thoughts I had while reading this book.



The story is set in the 1980s, when 29-year-old Diane, a psychologist and aspiring actress meets charming psychiatrist Charles through a blind date and they hit it off. There are so many similarities between them that Dr. Pomerantz cannot ignore. Eventually, she falls for him. They get married instead of Dr. Pomerantz focusing on the points that Charles sometimes might show illogical responses to various situations. Even after their marriage, she keeps thinking that if she were to be really sick, he will not be there for her. Later, they face challenges with infertility. Dr. Pomerantz’s health drops drastically and her lungs get punctured because of medical negligence. Charles stays concerned about her for a very short time, and later he excludes himself from taking care of her. Her worst horrors have then come alive. In the end, her health stays fine and she becomes conceivable but their relationship turns unfortunately violent and breaks down after 20 years of Dr. Pomerantz’s patience.



There are such beautiful scenes in this book that captivated me to the fullest. Also, I could put myself in her shoes for the whole time I read the book. The love that Charles and Dr. Pomerantz share is twisted, confused, and filled with narcissism. Also, we get to read and get inspired by the sheer amounts of bravery from the author while fighting cancer.



Elucidating on Charles’s behavior and lack of concern for his family, I would like to say that he had been a victim since his childhood which proves his extensive narcissism. He wanted space, a life, and a family of his own but his very instincts failed for him to accept anyone else rather than himself. That might be the main reason why he chose to be a psychiatrist, leaving his previous work, archaeology. He shows the characters of a left-out person and one who deliberately wants to fit in but despite all his wishes, his brain plays horribly with his life.



Coming to Dr. Pomerantz, it is a hats-off from me. Besides she is a great fighter of cancer, alongside all the horrifying events happening in her life, she inspires me and makes me extra cautious about choosing one’s partner for life. The way she has written the book provides me not only with a full-length novel but also an insightful photo-album. It is filled with vivid pictures from her memory which fascinates me every time I think about the situations that she has been in. I would like to say that I could relate to her a lot of times while she wrote that she had been an observer since her early life. Being that way makes us accept things we don’t want to and regret involving ourselves later. She has portrayed that perfectly. The psychology of the two people fighting with their brains is something we cannot understand if we are not positioned there ourselves. This story opened up my mind and refreshed it, pouring in some remarkable knowledge of human behavior and circumstances that we should and should not avoid in our lives.



The things that I liked the most in the book were the writing style and the spirit of the author while she wrote this amazing piece. I mean, it must have been really difficult to write something like this. So private and close to the heart and still something that needs to be known by the world. As an author, Dr. Pomerantz has hit the top for me and I not only loved her book but it was a great source of knowledge for me in regard to a marital relationship. I sincerely thank Dr. Pomerantz to have written her piece of life and presenting it to us with such amounts of courage.



I would like to rate Lost in the Reflecting Pool by Dr. Diane Pomerantz a 4 out of 4 stars as I am smitten by it. It is gripping, inspiring, and to a great extent, terrifying. However, I could find negligible mistakes here and there but overall, I would say that this book is well edited and that is why I did not give it 3 stars. I would recommend this book to everyone who loves to read about the mind and is interested in psychology and also normal people who want to understand the complexities of the human mind. Overall, this book can educate us and also leave us in a state, where we question the upbringing of children by ignorant parents. Charles would never have been the way he was if his parents had treated him right. He shows the same qualities of a narcissistic person growing up and becoming a father who cares about nobody else but him. Although I felt like this book was about Dr. Pomerantz, I would like to convey the message of fair parenting and that all the parents should read this book at least once in their lives.

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, She Writes Press.

This book is written as a memoir by the author. It begins with a scene where Charles, the author’s spouse, apparently does something to an unwanted cat. It takes much of the book to find what happened to the cat and understand Charles’s anger.

The author starts her story with meeting the love of her life and marriage. However, Charles’s relationship with his parents is rather estranged: “I really cannot tolerate being around them for too long.” He was “disdainful of his parents, mostly his mother.” “If my parents got into a fiery crash when they were coming to visit us, then we’d get my inheritance sooner…” This makes the reader what kind of person Charles is. Little nuggets of Charles’s issues are dropped early in the book; for example, as a three year old child, he put a kitten down the sewer and never followed up on it. Ms. Pomerantz speaks to the sacrifices she made through the courtship participating in Charles’s interests and foregoing opportunities for herself.

After they are married, there were problems with pregnancies. She “desperately wanted a family that I was willing to take all of the responsibility for our fertility problems.” They go through fertility treatments, adopt a daughter, Elisabeth Ann, and are able to have a biological son, Samuel Ian. When Ms. Pomerantz fights cancer including stem cell transplant, Charles is unsupportive and doesn’t come to medical appointments or the hospital. He “would never think of canceling patients” to be supportive and help her through the cancer treatments. “He had no clue about love or compassion; it was as if there was nothing inside him. He was an empty shell.” She makes it through the cancer treatments but the marriage is in shambles. “He is so controlling…” and “…always had to be right.” Charles had an extramarital relationship with a patient. He was constantly conniving and belittling Ms. Pomerantz.

While I understand the bitterness Ms. Pomerantz felt without her husband’s love and support during a major health crises and the infidelity, the book began to feel like a major husband bashing. “He was so envious of the support I got from my friends…”

The book is riddled with her negative emotions and trials with life. When the positive points were raised early in the book, there was foreshadowing of what was to come with Charles. It repeated the bad husband drudgery.

At a certain point, it felt like more and more of the same. Ms. Pomerantz makes her point of view about Charles very clear. “I also have a much deeper understanding of what it means to be in a relationship with a narcissist, with someone for whom I could have been anyone, as long as I met his needs.” One has to wonder what the other side of the story may be. After all, there are two sides to every story.

[Roozbeh Zabihollahi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t usually read memoirs, and this might be my first one. The hotel we were staying for holidays had this book in the room, I checked the rating and since it rated pretty high, started reading 😬 it’s pretty exciting read, and tough to let go of the book, since I was always hungry to see what happens next.

The book is written by a psychiatrist married to another psychiatrist. In contrary to their profession, they are pretty mad 😂 Diane, calls herself Di, as an author explains the roller coaster of her life. She started praising her husband, taking him up to the sky as a perfect man, and then bring him down lower than absolute garbage. Not fair, IMHO. She should have reflected what she has done wrong as well, which she barely did.

As a man reading this story of a failed marriage narrated by a woman, I have learned a lot, indeed. The fact that Charles was not attending to his sick wife was wrong. I have also learned the woman perspective on these matters, which I do appreciate.

The cancer fighting story also brought back memories of a friend who I have lost to cancer. My friend was not as lucky as Di, although he was way younger. The lost of parents have also been portrayed beautifully, and I liked reading it, and get emotional. Good job on that.

The other learning from the book, as the author invites the readers to do, is the value of journaling and writing your own emotions. I will try to do that from this point.

Interesting read, but it’s 3.5 starts I think ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Kathleen Pooler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is an honest and gripping portrayal of a woman who falls in love and marries a charming psychiatrist whose narcissistic personality disorder slowly but steadily erodes the relationship and turns into an abusive situation. The fact that she herself is a clinical psychologist adds a deeper dimension to the story. In a fast-paced story with vivid imagery she shares her journey of survival and triumph over both a marital nightmare and cancer.

With unflinching candor, she bravely reveals her vulnerabilities and human frailties as she navigates around her husband’s erratic and insensitive behavior to raise their two children while facing a cancer diagnosis. Her characters are believable and her writing is engaging. Once I started reading this story, I had a hard time putting it down.

I finished her story with tears in my eyes. This memoir is a riveting and deeply personal story of grace under fire and serves as a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit in overcoming overwhelming challenges. This memoir will appeal to anyone who has endured an abusive relationship at the hands of a narcissistic partner.

[Tiara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling memoir by Diane Pomerantz, with each chapter you are more entangled in the experience. Diane Pomerantz, a clinical psychologist that falls in love with a psychiatrist named Charles. Charles seems charming, handsome, thoughtful and successful.He comes across as a man that is in control of his life or maybe that's just how it seems on the surface. He woos her with romance, flowers and scintillating conversation.

Diane does notice a few quirks but she chooses to ignore them and stick them in the back of her mind as it's just what happens in relationships.Charles cheats on Diane in the infancy of their relationship and shrugs it off like someone who has no emotion or empathy for
her or the other woman. They take a break but Diane's feelings for Charles grow even more while apart. She can't explain why she feels this way, she can't analyze or think it through, it's love.They move in together, they get married, everything seems amazing but this is where things start to turn south.

Diane and Charles had discussed having children but she struggles in her attempt at getting pregnant. She battles scars of the past and new wounds that her relationship opens. Diane gets pregnant through much hardship,she has two beautiful little girls. Her best moments in the book are spent with her children, they are the glue that holds her fragile heart together. Her marriage begins to unravel, all that darkness within Charles starts bubbling to the surface now even affecting the girls. He becomes more controlling with each moment that passes,more detached and all that was magical and amazing begins to fade away.

You wonder when will it be enough for her to leave him and why is she staying? All the little tell tale signs that stared Diane in the face at the beginning come to life. What used to be love, laughter and flowers becomes narcissistic, sadistic, emotional abuse.Diane hits the nail on the head with this psychological love story and its moments of sheer joy and unexpected horror. She takes you on the journey of her life through amazing storytelling,vividly describing her heartache, abuse and trauma.

I highly recommend reading this book,I give it a 5/5 stars!

[Marty Carey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like a good memoir, but I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about this one. Two psychotherapists married to each other and one of them turned out to be more psycho than therapist. Diane Pomerantz's husband behaved unpredictably and often cruelly, making everything (even her bout with breast cancer) about him. Having "survived" a 23-year friendship with a narcissist whose name I won't mention here, I could certainly see the pattern of behavior that destroyed their relationship. However, I thought that by the end of the book, while Pomerantz had done a lot of things she needed to do to keep her kids and herself emotionally healthy and safe, I kept getting the feeling that she was still very much in "victim mode." I'm hoping that she is able to get herself out of that particular groove as time goes on.

[Marjorie Murstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harrowing and wildly compelling. Although, her inability to extricate her children as well as herself from this toxic situation in a more timely fashion is somewhat mad. I feared for the children and wondered why she wasn’t more fearful herself. 4.5

[MrsXNomore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the privilege to read an advance copy of “Lost in the Reflecting Pool: A Memoir”” and it certainly was a privilege! Diane, a Clinical Psychologist, bravely tells her story in a clear and concise manner, which resulted in my completing it within a few days. As the author of “The Secret Life of Captain X: My Life with a Psychopath Pilot” I had no choice but to use a pseudonym but Diane bares all, making those of us who have been with a personality disordered partner, as well as the general public, realize that this type of relationship can happen to anyone, even a professional! This book belongs at the top of the list of memoirs about victims. I’m excited for her and her reader! I highly suggest you pre-order a copy before you forget!
MrsXNomore, author

[Eric McDowell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diane Pomerantz is a Baltimore-area psychologist, but first and foremost, she is a survivor. She has successfully battled an aggressive cancer as well as a 20-year emotionally-crippling marriage to Charles, a psychiatrist and a controlling narcissist, as she details in her grippingly readable memoir LOST IN THE REFLECTING POOL. I wholeheartedly recommend this fine work, provided to me by courtesy of the author and BookTasters NonFiction in exchange for an honest review.

Charles is a deeply disturbed man who gets pleasure out of playing mind games and undermining his wife, especially in relation to their children. He enters into an extramarital relationship with a patient, of whom he writes about in his journal, lamenting that he has to spend a day with his kids when he would rather spend the day with her. He fantasizes about his parents dying in a “fiery crash” so that he could get his inheritance “sooner, rather than later.” He provides zero support to the author during her most trying times—her unsuccessful attempts to carry a child to term, her frustration and heartbreak as a result of unproductive fertility treatments, and most egregiously, throughout her battle with a particularly vigorous cancer. Upon their breakup, he insists on giving her $20 per week for child support.

One might ask, “How did this marriage go so wrong?” Dr. Pomerantz addresses this question throughout the memoir also by applying rich stylistic touches that embellish meaning and mood. She suggests a keen sense of foreboding when she writes that “only thirty-six hours before our wedding was to begin, the clouds rolled in. What was at first dusky gray cloud cover turned to black, ominous masses covering the entire sky above us.” Later, as the marriage begins crumbling to bits, Dr. Pomerantz suggests a sense of unreality creeping in, a foreign world, as she writes of her house that “the shades of pewter-gray sky filtered through random windows and made odd and disconcerting patterns on the walls. Sounds echoed off the high ceilings. The multiple staircases up and down gave me a feeling that dangers lurked in hidden places.” The poetry of passages like these brings the writing out of reportage and provides it with a deep sense of humanity.

By their very nature of operating from memory, memoirs require an appropriate psychological distance on the part of authors so that they don’t come across as merely extended personal journal pieces, and Dr. Pomerantz succeeds admirably in walking the tightrope between emotion and its mimetic presentation; she is ever-aware of the reader throughout the narrative. The image of a reflecting pool is given symbolic implications early on, as she writes that while walking, she and Charles “came to a reflecting pool with a marble wall, down which water fell softly. . . .Whether in the light of the moon or from the lamppost above us, as we looked into the water, our images merged.” Such an image suggests Dr. Pomerantz’s theme of precariously shifting boundaries, of uncertainty; losing oneself within a relationship becomes the price paid for trying to make work what is essentially, and ultimately, unworkable.

Yet this memoir is in no way a mere “revenge” piece. Dr. Pomerantz writes with compassion, clarity, and understanding throughout the narrative. Her children provide her with the will to carry on, to rise above sickness and a dysfunctional home. She writes of her gratitude in seeing her children grow up to be productive and successful adults, especially given her worries that the cancer would take her during their childhood. As she asserts toward the conclusion, “the losses will always echo within me, but that does not mean they define me.” It’s certainly a lesson we can appreciate.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't often write reviews, but this memoir was just irritating. Suffice it to say that an alternative title to this could have been, "I Wanted a Doctor." As the saying goes: you get what you settle for.

When she first moves to the Baltimore area as a young psychologist, Diane goes on a blind date with "Charles." He is a psychiatrist (and therefore an M.D.), and she is impressed with the comfortable lifestyle such a marriage could offer, so she is bound and determined to catch him. Despite numerous red flags, Diane wants a doctor-husband, and therefore she ignores the troubling behavior and a disturbing lack of empathy on the part of "Charles." She ultimately marries him.

The book then goes off on a tangent of her inability to conceive a child with "Charles," the subsequent adoption of their daughter, and the later birth of their son. Some time after those events, Diane is diagnosed with breast cancer. Over the years, "Charles" increasingly shows himself to be self-absorbed, incapable of empathy, and sometimes cruel. He is clearly not husband material for any mature and emotionally healthy woman, but Diane could have easily avoided him had she been honest with herself from the start.

Diane's memoir is not well-written. The dialogue is uninspired. Parts of the book dragged on way too long. And I found myself having less and less sympathy for Diane, who is quite self-absorbed as well. This is less the story of an abusive marriage than a marriage that was just bad to start with and went downhill from there. I am aghast that such a neurotic woman is apparently a mental health professional.

[Annette Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, just wow.
I am not easily drawn to memoirs; they're not something I look for when I browse in the bookstore. Diane's book came highly recommended through mutual friends, who are also excellent writers.

This book pulls you in from the beginning; it is hard to put down. I felt like I was right there with her. I got angry, and I cried. I kept saying, why doesn't she see what's happening!

As a woman, one is so often blamed for relationship failure, and I think part of her did not want her marriage to fail. She wanted her marriage to be like her parents' marriage, which in her eyes, was perfect, despite its faults I'm sure. As women, we are often raised believing that we are not complete until we marry, until we have a family, and we are raised with the fairy tale of "living happily ever after" when we do get married. But Diane's book shows us what can happen when we are so blinded by the fairy tales, we can't see straight. I so admire her fight, for her own identity, and I think this is a timely read for all women, for them to realize that you are your own person, whether married or otherwise. And that life does go on, and you will find good people, regardless of your problems. Thank you Diane, for not being afraid to reveal your struggle. It resonated with me more than you know. Highly recommend-what an unforgettable read.

[Elena Alvarez Dosil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking forward to this book and Diane's story. Even though I have never been in the same situation it was so graphically explained that it was easy to relate to. Diane's story is a hard one, a story of psychological abuse and gaslighting. More than a memoir, this book feels like a personal journal, and at times I found some events a little confusing.

The writing style is okay. I found some expressions repeated again and again, but we have to keep in mind that Diane Pomerantz is a psychologist, not a professional writer. Even with those little setbacks I think this book has real value, and it may help other in similar situations.

Katie Mitchell did a wonderful job transmitting the emotions poured on the text by Diane Pomerantz. I just missed some more voice range and consistence on the narration. There were some noticeable audio edits, but they were not too distracting.

I was moved by this story and how hard things became for Diane Pomerantz. I think this book is worth a listen to get inspired, get over difficult times, and thrive.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Diane Pomerantz. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

[Jakky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe writing this book must have been a cathartic exercise for the author. I do not doubt the therapeutic value of putting down in writing all the ways in which Pomerantz felt manipulated and mistreated and ultimately betrayed at the hands of her husband. At one point, she fell ill and his support was cool to lukewarm, at best. I’m glad she found her way out of that toxic relationship.

My experience as a reader, however, was less than satisfying. In the beginning, I could see where this was going, but eventually, all I could think was, “So what? You’re describing a great many of the toxic relationships that end in divorce every year.” The fact is, I stopped caring the longer I read because all I heard was whining, complaining and poor-me-ing. She goes on at length and in detail about everything her husband did to undermine her, but she glosses over her own failings, such as her rages. These rages are mentioned in passing, only as an indication of her level of frustration, but not as a contributing factor to the decline in the relationship. She paints herself as a victim, and I was annoyed.

Pomerantz got through it - I’m very glad about that. But her written account of all that occurred felt long-winded, repetitive and self-indulgent.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Pomerantz proves that it doesn't matter how educated a person is, it is easy to get drawn in by a manipulative person. Even though she is a psychologist and her intuition tells her that Charles has issues with his parents he should have worked out by now, she marries him anyway. The book begins by describing how Charles deals with an annoying cat from the previous owner and right away, I wanted to tell her to take the kids and run. Dr. Pomerantz is very adept at denying to herself and others how she and the children are treated especially when she is diagnosed with cancer and her husband becomes annoyed with rather than supportive of her experience. He is jealous that her family and friends rally around her and makes himself unavailable by having an affair with one of his patients, risking his medical license and financial security. #magicofmemoir @BookSparks Reviewed at https://pennyformythoughts-nona.blogs...

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author has clearly been through an inordinate amount of trauma that resulted not only from her bout with breast cancer, but from her abusive, controlling spouse. That trauma comes through, and I can sense how difficult it was for Ms. Pomerantz to tell this story, and how brave she was to escape a truly horrible person. However, this book was very poorly written. In particular, the dialogue seems forced, disjointed and not how a person would speak in real life. The writing really detracted from what would otherwise have been a very compelling story.

[Diane Pomerantz · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This is a book that will not easily be forgotten and will hopefully raise awareness of narcissistic, abusive behavior. With the help of her father Dr. Pomerantz is able to escape, but for many others, that is not an option. Book Clubs should consider this as a group read based on the many topics (adoption, spousal abuse, cancer, fertility issues, etc.) for discussion."
— Penny For My Thoughts

http://pennyformythoughts-nona.blogsp...

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Story of A Relationship with a narcissist

This is a great and amazing book! Dealing with a narcissist, alone, can be very difficult, and impossible at times. Now, marrying one and living with one is something I can't bare to imagine. I just hope one day, spoiler alert, that the author is able to forgive her ex husband because forgiveness is not for the benefit of the transgressor, but for the benefit of one's self.

[Terry Goldstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

If a book doesn't grab me in the first 30 or so pages, I am done with it, but I didn't want to put this book down. As I read about Diane's struggles, I got angry at Charles and how he controlled and abused his wife. This is a powerful and emotional book. I recommend it highly.

[Deb Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lost in the Reflecting Pool touched me to the core. Having undergone similar (though not quite as harrowing) experiences myself, I found myself in those pages, feeling the authors pain acutely. Beautifully written and deeply moving.