If Loving You is Wrong (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "IN REALITY IT was the tony homes of Lemon Heights perched on the scorched hills above Tustin that gave the city the nickname The Beverly..." (more)
Key Phrases: Mary Kay, Mary Letourneau, John Schmitz (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The tale seems ripe for tabloid exploitation: the fresh-faced blond elementary schoolteacher and mother of four just couldn't keep her hands off that 13-year-old boy. Worse yet, Mary Kay Letourneau had become obsessed with the slight, Samoan teenager while he was still a student in her sixth-grade class--and he fathered two babies with her. Yet in the hands of true crime writer Gregg Olsen, If Loving You Is Wrong becomes a poignant profile of an emotionally stunted young woman tightly wound up in a web of lies too fragile to sustain the weight of her own compulsions.

The facade the Letourneaus presented to the world was that of a devoted, upwardly mobile young couple. In reality Steve and Mary Kay were on the verge of financial and emotional bankruptcy. They married because she'd become pregnant and appearances were everything to Mary Kay's parents, ultra-conservative, family-values-promoting politician John Schmitz and his icy wife, Mary. Olsen, whose previous books include Abandoned Prayers and Black Widow, does a superior job with the story, interviewing Letourneau herself as well as friends and neighbors, researching and assembling the facts behind the lurid headlines in a nonjudgmental manner that allows readers to draw their own conclusions about the bigger issues at stake. Was Mary Kay Letourneau a pedophile, a child rapist, a female Humbert Humbert? Or was she, as she claims, a woman who'd found a soul mate and a true love that defied America's puritanical norms? Read If Loving You Is Wrong and decide for yourself. --Patrizia DiLucchio

Review

"Wonderfully researched...Searing and brilliant...A must-read!"-- Ann Rule, bestselling author of Bitter Harvest
-- Review

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's True Crime (August 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312970129
• ISBN-13: 978-0312970123
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #117,181 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you like True Crime - This is a MUST read!, February 15, 2000

By	Susan Jones (Leesburg, OH) - See all my reviews

This is a story of a very unhappy woman who tended to always put others before herself. Somewhat of a perfectionist in her job, devoting hours daily to her students and always had to look prim and proper, Mary Kay Letourneau made her mistake when she began to have an affair with one of her former students who happened to be 13 years old (a mere 1 year older than her son, Steven). Although I do understand the powers of love and that age should not be a hinderance, we do have laws, and some of our laws are not written but are morally understood. I was very much impressed with the research Gregg Olsen put into this book and, to the reader, this book comes across as non-judgemental. He gives you the choice to reach within your own morality and decide for yourself if she was rapists, just a woman in love, or a woman who just felt she was above the law. In my opinion, the age is a compelling factor here. As a parent, I wouldn't want my child (boy or girl) at the age of 13, sleeping with a former teacher (someone who is supposed to value education and teach a child good morals and values). Young Vili's future has been forever altered. He had to grow up far too fast. At the age of 15 he is a father of 2 and he doesn't even have a driver's license. If she truly loved him, then she should have done the MORALLY correct thing and wait. Let him grow up to be a man and choose some of his own paths in life rather than deciding his fate for him. My biggest questions are this: Might society have felt differently had this been a male teacher and a 13 year old girl? Has anyone thought about the effects this has had on all of the children? If you were the parent of Vili Fualuaa, what would you have done? Would you have wanted her prosecuted or would you have overlooked it? Read this book and see if you can answer the questions.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars That love was wrong!, January 7, 2000

By	mary white (Michigan) - See all my reviews

I passed the Mary Kay Letourneau book "If loving you is wrong" several times before finally picking it up. Although it said true crime I knew there was no physical violence. Since I am a avid true crime reader, having read books like "In cold blood" and "Buried Secrets" I know that most true crime books have bodies that are destroyed. No, this was not a crime where bodies did not survive, it is a crime where minds may may not survive.

Although the book was a quick read for me I noticed that the crime was hardly mentioned until the book was half over. I realized that Mr Olsen wanted to get as much information as he could to the reader to help explain things and people before the events had unfolded. For me that is the most important part of a book on any true crime. Also although the author let us reader's know what help and information he personally did or didn't get to put this story together, as a crime journalist he did an excellent job of using the resoures he had.

I believe he truely gave this sorry state of affairs not only it's just due, but left a soft cushion for the six young lives involved. For now the sad crime is physically over, but down the line after the young people witness taboids and movies about it, hopefully this non-malicious, well written book on the events they had no control over will help let them assimulate what has happened to their family and why. In fact I believe they may be the only ones there for her after it's all said and done.

Personally for a true crime book that was minus blood and gore, and that has the possibility of a follow-up I'd give it 6 stars and a thumb up.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More accurate & thorough than the TV Movie, February 15, 2000

By	Paige Turner "Film Fanatic" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews

This well-written book thoroughly examines the Mary Kay LeTourneau scandal from all sides. To me, the TV movie was too Pro-LeTourneau and presented an extremely flattering depiction of a complex woman who was sweet, caring, endearingly scatterbrained yet conceited, snobbish, selfish and delusional. The book examines all aspects of Mary's personality, good and bad. At times the reader will want to club LeTourneau on the head for her incredible stupidity and blatant disregard for the law and how her actions would affect her children and her teaching career. BUT--at the same time, the reader will also feel immense sympathy and pity for Mary, given her terribly dysfunctional family life and loveless marriage. One of the saddest things the author pointed out is how Letourneau's ex-attorneys and Vili's family are trying to make money off of this entire affair by selling Vili's "Story" to the tabloids and TV talk shows. One of the most chilling quotes was from a fellow inmate of Mary's as saying, "She [Mary] kept saying that Vili was working on getting her out of here...I wouldn't count on Vili for anything. He's just a kid...As long as she's in here [prison], she's worth something to them. Sad isn't it? Isn't she something more than a way to make money?" One can only shudder of the media circus the lawyers and family will try to generate should Mary be allowed to marry Vili once she is released from prison.