Playing Dead cover art

Playing Dead

A Memoir of Terror and Survival

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Playing Dead

By: Monique Faison Ross, Gary M. Krebs
Narrated by: Janina Edwards
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About this listen

Monique, the daughter of San Diego Chargers football great Earl Faison, married her high school sweetheart soon after she discovered she was pregnant with his child. Her relationship with Chris was shaky from the start, but turned tumultuous as he became verbally and physically abusive. When she could no longer put up with the abuse, she left him with their children. That was when the stalking and genuine threats began. Nothing stopped him - not protection injunctions, police warnings, or even arrests. One fateful Monday morning, Chris kidnapped Monique in front of her children and drove off on a nightmarish car ride that involved car crashes and rape. He mercilessly beat her on the head with a shovel and abandoned her brutalized body in the woods in the rain. He left, presuming she was dead . . . but was she?

©2019 Monique Faison Ross (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Abuse Domestic Partner Abuse Dysfunctional Families Dysfunctional Relationships Murder Parenting & Families Relationships True Crime Memoir Crime

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All stars
Most relevant
very interesting and narrated well. eye opening and hard hitting story. Easy calming listen & well told

Excellent

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A story of courage & survival. What Monique went through doesn't bear thinking about & she was lucky to survive.
It made me shudder a few times, the behaviour of her husband has more than a touch of sadism. I've been on the receiving end of that behaviour (NOT to this extent, thankfully!) so I can understand just how toxic these men can be.

However, I felt that the first half of the book was caught up in way more detail than was really necessary, making it overly long & a little tedious - that’s not to say that what happened to Monique was tedious, just that I don't think we needed to know the full background of her parents & childhood to understand.

I'm so glad she survived her attack & got away from this awful man.

Overly long

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Good narration. It is proven once again that the law and the judicial system are too complicated and justice only comes when disaster strikes.

Good book

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It goes without saying that any right thinking person would be very pleased that somebody survived an awful event, but I simply couldn’t get that far in the story, sadly. I made it to chapter 5 then gave up because the life story was unremarkable and frankly a bit boring, and the author’s tone was weirdly self aggrandising in places.
I’m happy her outcome from whatever the traumatic event was was positive and wish her well.

Couldn’t finish it

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Such a horrific story, shocking how little protection DA victims get when they are brave enough to leave their situation… no wonder women are so scared of leaving when they are not listened to by people who are supposed to protect them!

Moving

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