Out of the Box: A Journey In and Out of Emotional Captivity Last week we were walking out of "I,Tanya" with some friends and a friend of ours said, "Well why didn't she just leave?" She was reacting to the abuse and battery Tanya took at the hands of her husband and mother as depicted in the film. In this brave, honest and endearingly funny book Dudley points out that "No matter what happened, It was always my fault," and "Something better was just around the corner." I am loosely paraphrasing. But this is the way she describes how abusers roll and that is mainly why people who get abused stay. Master manipulators, and charmers to the outside world, they convince their victims that they are a lot better off staying and when that fails, farther down the line, they convince them that they will kill themselves, or the victim or someone near to them. So getting out is not as easy as it sounds.This book reads almost like a Hitchcock book, rippling with suspense from the beginning, and were it not for the fact you know it's a true story, and she lives to tell the tale, you think perhaps she didn't make it, based on all the surprising turns the plot takes. It was eye-opening and hard to put down. Set on a new England horse farm and in Beverly Hills it's also unabashedly saying this happens in all walks of life, to people with all kinds of resources. A great read, with wonderful meditative moments in the form of poetry at the beginning of every chapter that make it a peaceful relaxing experience.