Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

3.82 AVERAGE

kaceyjoy's profile picture

kaceyjoy's review against another edition

4.5
challenging informative medium-paced

chrisbrook's review against another edition

4.0
Just really well-written criticism that manages to be insightful/rational but also personable and approachable. Really liked this.

paigeadler's review against another edition

2.5
reflective slow-paced
You’re going to have a whole chapter on Joni Mitchell and say she’s a monster because she gave up her child for adoption? What about the blackface and doubling down on the blackface?
The whole book rambled on and I felt there wasn’t a good conclusion. The title says “should we support horrible people even if their art is good?” And the book says, “Do whatever you want!”

ninnahori's review against another edition

4.0
Look, I thought this was a great book and a great examination into the facets of dealing with the great art of terrible people. I thought it got... eh... like tenuous when she was talking about abandoning mothers as monsters, and ngl the realisation of what do we do with artistic monsters is a corollary to what do we do with monsters IRL was like, yes Claire this is painfully obvious. But I really liked the concept of The Stain being something that affects how the artwork is translated, that it's impossible to separate knowledge of monstrous things from the art, regardless of what stance you take about consuming the media of 'monsters'.

Idk, it's also been a while since I finished it. But I remember it being real good! Would recommend.

lauren_klebonis33's review against another edition

4.0
informative fast-paced

dembat's review against another edition

4.5
challenging emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

pickledisla's review against another edition

3.0
While I think that this read is a rather important one, I also found it a little strange as it was a book that mixed the subject: 'What do we do with art by monsterous men?' And mixed it with a sort of memoir.

ritafitton's review against another edition

4.25
challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced
chaosweib's profile picture

chaosweib's review against another edition

3.0
informative reflective medium-paced
redberrystraw's profile picture

redberrystraw's review against another edition

2.75
challenging informative reflective slow-paced
The idea and concept presented (how to deal with separating art from the monsters that made the art), was an interesting one and I was interested in reading about that. 

There was little discussion of that, but overall some interesting points brought up about all of us being monsters in a way and kinda like a who can cast the first stone type but?

I don’t know it was a thought exercise, but it felt too disjointed and too many concepts without any real conclusions or thoughts. More just feelings and stories.