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dalefu's review
2.0
For such a short book, I found this a slog. I was ready to engage with the subject matter, but could not find a way to connect to the writing at all. The author's writing style veered between honest opinion and sarcastic straw-manning, and it was legitimately difficult to tell which side of the line she was on from paragraph to paragraph.
Combine that with the fact that I couldn't identify with any of the cultural reference points she used (examples include a subsection of the "blogosphere" dedicated to survivors of relationships with a narcissist, a star of the reality tv show My Super Sweet 16, professional asshole Tucker Max, etc), and the constant academic name-dropping, and I was left feeling completely disconnected from the book in my hands.
There were one or two interesting observations or ideas to take away from the book, but overall I can't say I recommend it.
Combine that with the fact that I couldn't identify with any of the cultural reference points she used (examples include a subsection of the "blogosphere" dedicated to survivors of relationships with a narcissist, a star of the reality tv show My Super Sweet 16, professional asshole Tucker Max, etc), and the constant academic name-dropping, and I was left feeling completely disconnected from the book in my hands.
There were one or two interesting observations or ideas to take away from the book, but overall I can't say I recommend it.
horfhorfhorf's review
3.0
"Narc" is not short for narcissist, no matter how many times Dombek tries to use it as such.
sujuv's review
4.0
I wasn't sure what to make of this book at first, but by the end I was taken in by its many approaches to the current "epidemic" of narcissism (the quotes follow from what's in the book). What I took away from this book more than anything is that so much of what we're told about how society is changing - millennials being selfish, etc. - needs to be investigated further and not taken on face value. We are fed oversimplified versions of the truth too often. Of course, interrogating what you're presented with is always a good idea. This book was a good reminder of that.
bzzz3234's review
5.0
yooooo i loved this book. kristin thank you for writing something that felt to me like useful lessons: removing the self from narcissm because only other ppl are narcissists is....fake! lmao. freud had some interesting ideas but his conviction in thinking he knew how narcissm worked as a developmental stage is ...so sad. thank you for demystifying that and humbling that weirdo. some other stuff was so fun to read. i felt like i was being doxxed as were so many people in my life.. how did you do that! gonna pick this up to read again and again.
keight's review
3.0
My friend Athena wrote a review of this essay on “the fear of narcissism” that suggested the writing fell a bit flat to her at the end. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that I wound up feeling almost exactly the same way. A brief history of clinical and cultural understandings of narcissism, with sections focused around concepts like The Bad Boyfriend, The Millennial, The Murderer; the turning point is The Artist, where the focus shifts to Dombek’s self-reflection. As Athena said, it was perhaps intended as “some kind of experimental practice of writing as a selfish/other-centric dialectic,” but I was disappointed that everything built up to be so personal, self-centered. But it’s appropriate within the essay’s lens of narcissism being more easily identified in others. Read more on my booklog
thishannah's review
I was interesting in picking up this book because of the occasional visits I've made to the internet "narcisphere"--the areas of Reddit or advice blogs where people gather to talk about the narcissists in their lives and share strategies for coping with them. These communities have always weirded me out, and Dombek's book helped me realize why: she writes that they sometimes seem more like fan clubs for discussing narcissism, with all kinds of in-club lingo and recurring characters, rather than places that could actually help someone escape a bad relationship. (To clarify: I don't know of any narcissists in my life, and I just visit these communities because I'm a nosy internet person and I lurk in a lot of spaces I have no business being in.)
The narcisphere portion of the essay really resonated with me, but I felt that there were huge tonal shifts that didn't always mesh with one another. Some parts read like pop psychology or philosophy, then it would suddenly veer toward an in-depth academic review of literature, and near the end it became a literary personal essay about the writer, who I felt like I hadn't even met until these final pages. There were interesting takeaways throughout, such as about the flaws of how we measure and diagnose narcissism, but a lot of the book just sort of washed over me without much sinking in.
The narcisphere portion of the essay really resonated with me, but I felt that there were huge tonal shifts that didn't always mesh with one another. Some parts read like pop psychology or philosophy, then it would suddenly veer toward an in-depth academic review of literature, and near the end it became a literary personal essay about the writer, who I felt like I hadn't even met until these final pages. There were interesting takeaways throughout, such as about the flaws of how we measure and diagnose narcissism, but a lot of the book just sort of washed over me without much sinking in.