Customer Reviews

Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Nine and a Half Weeks" chronicles the speedy decline of one woman into a relationship of S&M that goes beyond the bedroom and dominates her every action and emotion.

Told in the first person by the woman, you never discover the names of the two characters but you feel the passion, the love, and the pain both physical and especially emotional. It's disturbing to read complete submission between two people and you think to yourself you'd never turn over so much control to another person but you never really know until you live it.

The simplicity of this book is what really makes it complicated and even more compelling to read. So many books are packed with pages and pages of fluff but this book is exquisite by simply telling the story with out volumous pages of prose. Beautifully written.

girldiver:)

This is a wonderful glimpse into the very private world of Dominance and submission. What is most shocking about this book is that McNeill wrote her story - and got it published - in the seventies, while this subject-matter is still controversial and hush-hush today.

Her prose is clean, unadorned, yet the book is titillating and thought-provoking. The writer tells her shocking tale in a matter-of-fact way, neither judging nor condoning anyone's behavior, nor making apologies for what is simply a seldom revealed side of human nature.

Those who have more than a passing interest in Erotic Power Exchange will enjoy McNeill's heartfelt account of what must have been - judging by the book's final words - the most important, intense relationship of her life - for better or for worse.

I highly recommend this book.

Forget the movie! It's forgettable and formulaic. This 'journal' is anything but. The film does it no justice whatsoever. And much of what's in the film is from the terribly lacking imagination of the screenwriter, and not at all from the book. Let me state that I do not believe the events in the book to be true, but because of that, I have to say it is one of THE great novels ever pumped out by the U.S.. And ultimately, it is a tragedy that will etch itself into the tissue of the reader's brain for life, whether you like S/M, or whether you think it's uninteresting, or sick. The love of this woman is QUITE sincere; and the inward pain she experiences puts all the belt-beatings to shame.

A brilliant swirl of eroticism, sensuality, and humanity, this novel captures the passion and the dysfunction of the sexually abusive relationship. McNeil invites the reader into a space that most would reserve for only their quiet places (or their therapists). She does this with well-crafted prose which makes the reader feel like an invisible bystander to a crime of both lust and power. I would submit she takes her readers to places many are too embarrassed or afraid to admit they have or would like to go.

This book was published and reviewed as nonfiction in 1978, though it was written anonymously (by "an executive for a large corporation in New York," according to the book flap). It was reissued as a novel when the film adaptation came out. Whether the events recounted happened or not, it has the power and impact of truth in it. A woman becomes involved with a man who keeps taking her deeper into S&M bondage and humiliation, to the point that she has a breakdown and he abandons her at a hospital. The first-person voice of the woman narrating the story is riveting. Everything that happens, no matter how extreme, is conveyed with the same neutral tone; it's up to the reader to pass judgment on the relationship, for she does not. It would be unfair to judge S&M by this book, though, for she didn't know what she was getting into. I recommend McNeill's short book to readers undisturbed by explicit descriptions of kinky sex.

This book satisfied the curiosity the film generated in me. It is an unusually stark description of the affair, like a diary. No apologies, no attempts on her part to change him, but it made it clear that even though her heart hurt from his treatment, her body exploded with pleasure, never to feel that way again.
It was one of the very few books I've read, where I could not come up with a different way for the story to go. Given their personalities, it could have only happened as Elizabeth McNeill wrote that it happend.

I first read this book when it was published in the late 1980's. I just re-read it last week and found it just as intriguing as the first time.

This is not for the faint of heart, for it explores the most secret side of our nature. However, I liked the story and found that I could not put the slim volume down until I finished the last line.

Food for much thought.

Alright, I thought the movie was sexy but I have mixed feelings about the book. I'm super open-minded and not shocked easily, but what was described as S&M really seemed to me more of an abusive relationship. The narrator didn't feel much like an intelligent, empowered woman exploring her sexuality as much as someone who had fallen under the power of a manipulative, violent man (who would beat her for example or force her into rough sex). Some parts were titillating, but at the end it left me feeling a bit repulsed.

I bought this at a supermarket years ago--surprising for the content inside. I remembered it as very, very sexy but when I read it again, there was nothing graphic about the nonetheless powerful sexuality; even more of an achievement.

The "love affair" eventually bounces up against the submissive author's limits. What happens after that makes me think the book is true, as she claims. I certainly hope 2 people experienced these adventures and I only hope to do as well in my life!

Drat! I hit send before I was done. If you want to read some other good male-dominant/female submissive SM fiction read The Story of O or most of the Gor books, along with sections of the Beauty books by Anne Rice. If you want to read some good SM non-fiction read SM 101, Screw The Roses, or The Loving Dominant (and the books they're linked to here on Amazon).