Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

21 reviews

hedgielib's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pedophilia, Rape, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Homophobia, Mental illness, Murder, Sexual assault, Violence, Child abuse, and Alcohol

emily_mae08's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Abandonment, Misogyny, Grief, and Violence

milanaaaah's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

What do we do with the monsters who create art we love? What do we do with the monsters we love? We do we do with the monster in ourselves? 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Pedophilia, Abandonment, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Rape, and Alcoholism

mirandaleighhhh's review against another edition

medium-paced

1.5

Upon discovering this I was really intrigued - the question of ethics and morality in separating the art from the artist is one I spend a lot of time thinking about. However- and people have gone more in depth with their review than I have the energy for after spending 10 hours listening to the author ponder this- this is unorganized and messy and upon reflection, this being a memoir is confusing and ultimately weakens a lot of the point. Because it’s trying to answer one overarching question, it dangerously compares “monsters” who an*lly r*pe 10 year olds to alcoholics? or women who “abandon” their children? (give them up for adoption or who work?)

It’s not that nothing ever made sense- she had a lot of takes that I agreed with - but honestly and truly this ended up reading like a woman who still has a lot of guilt and who has healing to do over her own life's actions. There is a lot of projection even and most especially when she is explicitly trying not to. There’s a lot of white woman guilt too it seems.

Most of all I hated her emphasis on peoples bad deeds creating a “stain” on their past and future actions…and there was a fucked up sentence regarding Michael Jackson when she first presented this concept…but anyway, the whole stain thing made her comparisons even more wild. Sylvia Plath’s suicide (her stain) and Woody Allen’s abuse of woman (his stain) are two completely different things.

And then she ends everything with mentioning how there are “monsters” in our lives that we still love. Like yes but…arent we talking about artists we don’t personally know and never will? So why are you ending it with “its all love yall” ???

I think this is a nuanced topic with lots to be said, and she says some of it, but her zooming in and out and in and out without thoughtful connection irritated me. She also doesn’t really discuss the question of platforming or financially supporting (ie buying merchandise or making the person money) a “monster” who is very much alive, which I think is an important piece of this whole fucking thing! 

I cannot recommend this, especially the audio, and I can see how this would trigger a lot of people.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Addiction, Rape, Alcoholism, and Abandonment

chelseadoherty's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Mental illness, Pedophilia, Incest, Sexual assault, Addiction, Abandonment, Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Domestic abuse, Self harm, Drug abuse, Racism, Religious bigotry, Mass/school shootings, Pandemic/Epidemic, Misogyny, and Suicide

flissbooks's review against another edition

hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Abandonment, Sexual assault, Rape, Physical abuse, Racism, Transphobia, Antisemitism, Alcoholism, Pedophilia, and Child abuse

larajgriff1's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

3.0

Unfortunately my expectations and hopes for this book were vastly different than what I experienced.  I wanted a more broad view of how "monstrous" artists affect their fandom and what the group as a whole or individually moves forward.  This book is much more personal to the writer and more of a memoir of her life and how she relates to different artists than the effect of their actions on the world.  

However, I cannot fault the author for the book not being what I hoped.  It is written very well and does make some good points about how these moments and artists affect us.  Though in the middle of the book she seems to be "existential crisis-ing" in circles and it doesn't feel like there is momentum again until the last few chapters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Violence, Sexual violence, Suicide, Racism, Abandonment, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abortion, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Antisemitism, Rape, Transphobia, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

this is a book about people who do terrible things. It is hard to avoid anything, but I did skip a full chapter because I was so uncomfortable with the crimes of an artist.

kchamp's review against another edition

5.0

Brilliant. Once I got into it I couldn’t help but devour this book. It is uncomfortable and honest and thought-provoking and so, so intelligent.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Rape, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Antisemitism, and Misogyny

jainabee's review against another edition

challenging dark funny informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

I am so glad this book exists because I NEEDED it. It needed to exist in the world. The question of how to balance fandom of my favorite works of creativity with the toxic and destructive behaviors of the creators is an issue that torments me. Dederer directly addresses some of my own pet monsters; Woody Allen, David Bowie, JK Rowling, Miles Davis. This book makes me think a LOT. This book is very uncomfortable in a vitally important way. This book challenges me in ways I needed. The chapter comparing and contrasting Valerie Solanas and Sylvia Plath (!!!!!) flipped my wig with the brilliance of unexpected insights about how women respond to the violence of misogyny. The chapter about Lolita is a sparkling gem of brilliant insight and analysis that might be the best review of it I've ever read (spoiler alert: Nabokov is not a monster, though he is a genius). This book is FULL of triggering content, as it describes the crimes of the creators. No way around that. The point of the book seems to be to face the monsters directly and feel the extremely uncomfortable dilemma between loving something, even the monster, "even after everything." I got a lot to think about here.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Rape, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Self harm, Child abuse, Drug use, Physical abuse, Infidelity, Abandonment, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Sexism, Pedophilia, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Kidnapping, Racism, Mental illness, Medical content, Gaslighting, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Alcoholism, Classism, Drug abuse, Cursing, Grief, Murder, Racism, War, Xenophobia, Genocide, and Hate crime

Minor: Drug use, Death of parent, Dysphoria, and Fire/Fire injury

I need to read this book again. And probably again.

probablyshannon's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Chronic illness, Drug use, Infidelity, Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Mental illness, Addiction, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Sexism, and Sexual assault