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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Very interesting but the writing felt ironically sentimental at times.
This was an… account for sure! Mostly of affluenza, though. For anyone who may be reading this review and struggling with the same things, but with lack of control or resources: you must understand that this was written by (really on her own admission) a nepotism baby, who had every resource in the world to “solve” this problem. She had unlimited access to therapy, and an undergraduate degree from UCLA (in which she had unlimited access to her psychology professors and unlimited access to reading material), which she did nothing with, to work under her father at his record label for the majority of her adult life. The barriers that plague most people with sociopathy or antisocial personality disorder (like the people she visited in prison as a child) are not as easily overcome, understandable, or cognitively accessible. I imagine most people who struggle with sociopathy don’t get the opportunity to “discover it within themselves” by breaking into their fathers’ neighors’ mansions without consequence. I appreciate her contributions to academia later in life (as she had the time and money to devote her life to nothing else but studying herself), but don’t feel bad if you feel like this is you and you’ve fucked up in comparison to this author. The book has less to do with neurodivergence/the condition itself and more to do with sensationalized scenarios in her personal life.
PS I’m not the judge but I’m not sure this woman is even a sociopath. She was self-diagnosed but never professionally diagnosed with sociopathy; she says later in the book that she’s a “diagnosed sociopath” but never at an earlier point in the book does she say that a professional said as much, just that her therapist said she skewed toward less toward “normal” and more toward psychopathic tendencies on the PCL-R test. Based on her recount (and listening to her tone on audiobook is important to this), she feels the things she claims she doesn’t feel: guilt, remorse, being truly in love, professional direction, empathy, abstinence from things she knows are wrong, self-restraint, social pressure/caring about what other people think. It seems that she motivates/trains herself to have these impressions of herself.
PS I’m not the judge but I’m not sure this woman is even a sociopath. She was self-diagnosed but never professionally diagnosed with sociopathy; she says later in the book that she’s a “diagnosed sociopath” but never at an earlier point in the book does she say that a professional said as much, just that her therapist said she skewed toward less toward “normal” and more toward psychopathic tendencies on the PCL-R test. Based on her recount (and listening to her tone on audiobook is important to this), she feels the things she claims she doesn’t feel: guilt, remorse, being truly in love, professional direction, empathy, abstinence from things she knows are wrong, self-restraint, social pressure/caring about what other people think. It seems that she motivates/trains herself to have these impressions of herself.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
DNF @ 36%
I can’t explain it. I think it’s a combination of the way she narrates her story and that a part of me kind of doesn’t believe a word she says (which would make sense… sociopaths love to manipulate).
I can’t explain it. I think it’s a combination of the way she narrates her story and that a part of me kind of doesn’t believe a word she says (which would make sense… sociopaths love to manipulate).
informative
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
medium-paced
While I'm not sure I have any major opinion on the accuracy of her story, it is very interesting reading these reviews. To be fair, she does note that the conversations are "reconstructed" which I think lends to the vibe of inaccuracy, as they are very one-sided. The writing was just OK, the dialogue could be a little cringey, but I found the Sociopath introspection fascinating. It's not a topic I knew much about, beyond the "serial killer" connotations in the media. The concept of not being able to feel naturally (rather than not at all), and how it relates to anxiety or being "stuck" was eye opening. The music business aspect was obviously also very intriguing, who are you Max?
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced