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A review by hannxm
My Family Can Kiss My Ass: How to Deal with Toxic, Messy, Narcissistic Family Members by Chanel Jasmin Clark
funny
reflective
fast-paced
2.0
I go into every book with the mentality that they automatically get 5 stars and that rating fluctuates throughout my reading. This book quickly went down to a 4, a 3, a 2, a 2.5 and then finally a 2.
The cause of the first lost star, which isn't mentioned in the blurb, is that the author is religious and most of the book is her preaching about God and how he can fix your problems. As an atheist, I prefer to avoid religious books, especially ones that preach too much, so I don't appreciate this being left out of the blurb.
The cause of the second lost star is that the book is heavily anecdotal with no credible sources of information. It felt like I was reading the author's diary or autobiography. I understand that for the author to understand narcissists, they're likely going to have personal experience but just under half way through, her chapters lose structure and is made up of a formula of 'The narcissist will do this to you - I know this because this and this happened to me - so yeah, that's the fact, don't contact them'.
That leads me onto the loss of the third star. Her main advice is: go no contact. Whilst this is legitimate advice for dealing with narcissistic family members, when the rest of the book is full of anecdotes and no new or scientific information, it simply becomes a needlessly stretched out passage of text that reads 'go no contact' in as many possible ways.
The author even has one chapter that says to avoid holidays and vacations with toxic family, then one immediately after saying to avoid family functions, then another chapter saying to avoid funerals. To me, this read as the same thing stretched over three chapters.
It went down to 2 as the book continued to go down the route of 'the narcissist will do this one specific thing to you. I know this because my mum did it to me (followed by another long diary entry)'.
It had a small 0.5 boost when there were some comical sentences thrown in the ever increasingly ranty, sweary, downward spiral of the end of the book; and also when the author said that the church is toxic as hell and won't help you heal.
It went back down to 2 when the author displayed her (likely religion caused) homophobia in the second to last chapter. Then the last chapter was almost entirely focused on the church and God, referring to family members as demonic and even included burning sage, spraying walls with Florida water (???) and mopping your floors with ammonia? I think this is good evidence of how unhinged and unstructured the book becomes the further you read.
What kept this book at a 2 was that, at least at the beginning of the book, the writing started off quite good. She was using official terminology, providing examples that were contained and there were a couple of nuggets of information I found affirming. Throw in some witty or comical sentences and there was a recipe here for a decent and helpful book. Unfortunately, it wasn't delivered.
The cause of the first lost star, which isn't mentioned in the blurb, is that the author is religious and most of the book is her preaching about God and how he can fix your problems. As an atheist, I prefer to avoid religious books, especially ones that preach too much, so I don't appreciate this being left out of the blurb.
The cause of the second lost star is that the book is heavily anecdotal with no credible sources of information. It felt like I was reading the author's diary or autobiography. I understand that for the author to understand narcissists, they're likely going to have personal experience but just under half way through, her chapters lose structure and is made up of a formula of 'The narcissist will do this to you - I know this because this and this happened to me - so yeah, that's the fact, don't contact them'.
That leads me onto the loss of the third star. Her main advice is: go no contact. Whilst this is legitimate advice for dealing with narcissistic family members, when the rest of the book is full of anecdotes and no new or scientific information, it simply becomes a needlessly stretched out passage of text that reads 'go no contact' in as many possible ways.
The author even has one chapter that says to avoid holidays and vacations with toxic family, then one immediately after saying to avoid family functions, then another chapter saying to avoid funerals. To me, this read as the same thing stretched over three chapters.
It went down to 2 as the book continued to go down the route of 'the narcissist will do this one specific thing to you. I know this because my mum did it to me (followed by another long diary entry)'.
It had a small 0.5 boost when there were some comical sentences thrown in the ever increasingly ranty, sweary, downward spiral of the end of the book; and also when the author said that the church is toxic as hell and won't help you heal.
It went back down to 2 when the author displayed her (likely religion caused) homophobia in the second to last chapter. Then the last chapter was almost entirely focused on the church and God, referring to family members as demonic and even included burning sage, spraying walls with Florida water (???) and mopping your floors with ammonia? I think this is good evidence of how unhinged and unstructured the book becomes the further you read.
What kept this book at a 2 was that, at least at the beginning of the book, the writing started off quite good. She was using official terminology, providing examples that were contained and there were a couple of nuggets of information I found affirming. Throw in some witty or comical sentences and there was a recipe here for a decent and helpful book. Unfortunately, it wasn't delivered.