A review by thishannah
The Selfishness of Others: An Essay on the Fear of Narcissism by Kristin Dombek

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.