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zombiezami's review
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Over the past few years, I've been making an effort to seek out perspectives from people with heavily stigmatized diagnoses: anti-social personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, etc. I'm very committed to disability justice action, and I think this is an important part of that that often gets overlooked. If we accept that mental illness is a disability, than we have to accept that it's, well, unacceptable to malign specific illnesses and disorders as if people with them are inherently evil.
As an autistic person, I felt very seen in this book. Like the author, I too have many experiences of people getting angry at me for not having the facial expression/emotional reaction that they expect in a given situation. I felt the frustration of the author as she tried her best to be honest and fit in, yet people still made assumptions about her and tried to use her. Overall, I thought the book was well written and often hilarious. I highly recommend it.
As an autistic person, I felt very seen in this book. Like the author, I too have many experiences of people getting angry at me for not having the facial expression/emotional reaction that they expect in a given situation. I felt the frustration of the author as she tried her best to be honest and fit in, yet people still made assumptions about her and tried to use her. Overall, I thought the book was well written and often hilarious. I highly recommend it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Stalking, and Mental illness
Moderate: Alcohol, Confinement, Bullying, Toxic friendship, Animal cruelty, Infidelity, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Classism, Toxic relationship, and Cursing
Minor: Pregnancy, Murder, Animal death, Suicide, Racism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Forced institutionalization
Eugenics, incarcerationhoneybeewitched87's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Animal cruelty, and Cursing
Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Stalking, and Violence
Minor: Sexual content and Alcohol
devynreadsnovels's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Sexism, Mental illness, Grief, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Cursing, Stalking, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Drug use, Self harm, Addiction, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, and Misogyny
dblue236's review against another edition
dark
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
I got through about a third of this without much issue. It reads like fiction, and I'm inclined to think that most of it is, but it was more or less harmless and generally entertaining. But the more I read, the more I disliked the author, and the more off-putting the book became. By a little more than halfway through, I had to give up. I don't find her believable, I don't like her, and I just couldn't justify investing any more of my time.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Child abuse, Bullying, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Gaslighting, Animal cruelty, Medical content, Animal death, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail
torturedreadersdept's review
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Animal death, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Stalking, Sexual harassment, Abandonment, Bullying, Dysphoria, Animal cruelty, Cursing, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Body horror, and Sexual assault
spacebras's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.5
4.5 stars- based on quality and engagement in writing. Not on the author's own experiences or the veracity of her claims cause I don't know her, whose to say! :)
Surprising no one, Sociopath by Patric (short for Patricia) Gagne is absolutely fascinating. Narrated by the author, we're taken through various instances in her life where her emotional distance and apathy are apparent as she struggles to understand why she feels the way she does (or doesn't). Now, in the present day, Gagne has the experience, the research, and the vocabulary to not only help herself navigate through life as someone with an "emotional learning disability", but to assist others just like her.
Gange's goal with Sociopath, is to explain and intellectualize her experiences in a way that will reach others like her, and help create the foundation for a more robust support system for people who have anti-social disorder, sociopathy, and psychoses. She does a fantastic job of relating her experiences in a way that I, a person who definitely feels way too much, can understand the process of thought. Her story is addictive and fascinating, not because of any voyeuristic pleasure, but because of the humanization of a HIGHLY stigmatized condition. When trying to tell my family what I was reading, they immediately recoiled, and that reaction is what she is trying to resolve. She isn't fundamentally a bad person due to her sociopathy. She's just different.
Just released, Sociopath has a lot of well-earned buzz around it. After finishing the memoir, you feel like you know Gagne's intimate thoughts, but you really don't know anything about her. While listening, I kept finding myself trying to look her up outside of her advocacy work and interviews about the memoir. It is very clear that Gagne has had a life few of us could imagine, her father is a hotshot music producer, and she worked in that world for a while too. At points, she would mention famous people she was on a first-name basis with (ex. Hugh Hefner), and I kept thinking "WHO IS SHE??". But her maiden name and her father's name and business are kept intentionally vague (ugh I wanna know! Who is this mysterious music star whom she has an ill-fated relationship with?? It's so movie, it's so LA-coded).
With this buzz, there are also people skeptical of her, her credentials, and her story. Which, sure, to be fair, she outright admits she's a liar. Sometimes antagonists in the memoir are a little too over the top mean, or scenes feel more like a movie than a recollection. But I think that the former can be an indication of her honesty- she's not hiding that she dislikes a person because why would she? And the latter is probably just a by-product of living and working in LA- I'm 86% sure it's not a real place, and she possibly had some script writer friends help her at some point. Those "Movie Moments", are pretty apparent and a little jolting. And her instance of calling her anti-social impulses her "darkness" was pretty cheesy. But ultimately harmless.
Her credentials, a Ph.D., seem to have been a source of confusion long before the memoir when she was writing essays for magazines about her sociopathy. There seem to be some accreditation issues with where she studied, but honestly, that doesn't really bother me. Gagne talks openly about how she isn't a good student and she is openly a sociopath. It stands to reason that your standard clinical psychology program probably doesn't want her/sees her as a liability. A so-called "diploma mill" might have been her only option because she is a marginalized person working at a deficit. The first thing Gagne does in Sociopath is mention how privileged and lucky she is, even as a rich, white, cis lady, she can't waltz into UCLA and say: "Hi I'm a sociopath, let me become a psychologist." The field is, ironically, very biased against people with mental health issues. Sociopathy is a loaded diagnosis as well, which she goes into great detail in the memoir about why she prefers this term. It's stupid for people to rag on her for it- it's her decision! If we're still letting people say they have "Asperger's" she can say she's a sociopath imho.
Surprising no one, Sociopath by Patric (short for Patricia) Gagne is absolutely fascinating. Narrated by the author, we're taken through various instances in her life where her emotional distance and apathy are apparent as she struggles to understand why she feels the way she does (or doesn't). Now, in the present day, Gagne has the experience, the research, and the vocabulary to not only help herself navigate through life as someone with an "emotional learning disability", but to assist others just like her.
Gange's goal with Sociopath, is to explain and intellectualize her experiences in a way that will reach others like her, and help create the foundation for a more robust support system for people who have anti-social disorder, sociopathy, and psychoses. She does a fantastic job of relating her experiences in a way that I, a person who definitely feels way too much, can understand the process of thought. Her story is addictive and fascinating, not because of any voyeuristic pleasure, but because of the humanization of a HIGHLY stigmatized condition. When trying to tell my family what I was reading, they immediately recoiled, and that reaction is what she is trying to resolve. She isn't fundamentally a bad person due to her sociopathy. She's just different.
Just released, Sociopath has a lot of well-earned buzz around it. After finishing the memoir, you feel like you know Gagne's intimate thoughts, but you really don't know anything about her. While listening, I kept finding myself trying to look her up outside of her advocacy work and interviews about the memoir. It is very clear that Gagne has had a life few of us could imagine, her father is a hotshot music producer, and she worked in that world for a while too. At points, she would mention famous people she was on a first-name basis with (ex. Hugh Hefner), and I kept thinking "WHO IS SHE??". But her maiden name and her father's name and business are kept intentionally vague (ugh I wanna know! Who is this mysterious music star whom she has an ill-fated relationship with?? It's so movie, it's so LA-coded).
With this buzz, there are also people skeptical of her, her credentials, and her story. Which, sure, to be fair, she outright admits she's a liar. Sometimes antagonists in the memoir are a little too over the top mean, or scenes feel more like a movie than a recollection. But I think that the former can be an indication of her honesty- she's not hiding that she dislikes a person because why would she? And the latter is probably just a by-product of living and working in LA- I'm 86% sure it's not a real place, and she possibly had some script writer friends help her at some point. Those "Movie Moments", are pretty apparent and a little jolting. And her instance of calling her anti-social impulses her "darkness" was pretty cheesy. But ultimately harmless.
Her credentials, a Ph.D., seem to have been a source of confusion long before the memoir when she was writing essays for magazines about her sociopathy. There seem to be some accreditation issues with where she studied, but honestly, that doesn't really bother me. Gagne talks openly about how she isn't a good student and she is openly a sociopath. It stands to reason that your standard clinical psychology program probably doesn't want her/sees her as a liability. A so-called "diploma mill" might have been her only option because she is a marginalized person working at a deficit. The first thing Gagne does in Sociopath is mention how privileged and lucky she is, even as a rich, white, cis lady, she can't waltz into UCLA and say: "Hi I'm a sociopath, let me become a psychologist." The field is, ironically, very biased against people with mental health issues. Sociopathy is a loaded diagnosis as well, which she goes into great detail in the memoir about why she prefers this term. It's stupid for people to rag on her for it- it's her decision! If we're still letting people say they have "Asperger's" she can say she's a sociopath imho.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Toxic relationship, Chronic illness, Gaslighting, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, and Stalking
Moderate: Cursing, Suicide attempt, Violence, Animal death, and Classism
This book is written about sociopathy by a sociopath. She does not couch her feelings or her actions. She never overtly harms anyone besides one instance where shegicb38's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Stalking, Animal death, and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Bullying, Medical trauma, and Emotional abuse
kimmykelly's review against another edition
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Toxic friendship, Stalking, and Mental illness
creativerunnings's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
5.0
This extraordinary memoir is well on its way to become my favorite read of the year.
Gagne describes an unshakable feeling of being different from other people from a young age, which sends her on a lifelong journey of self-discovery.
“My name is Patric Gagne and I am a sociopath. I am a passionate mother and wife. I am an engaging therapist. I am extremely charming and well-liked. I have lots of friends. [...] But guess what? I can’t stand your friends. I am a liar. I’m a thief. I’m emotionally shallow. I’m mostly immune to remorse and guilt. I’m highly manipulative. I don’t care what other people think.”
Gagne feels basic emotions like happiness and anger, while more complex emotions like guilt, empathy, remorse, and even love, are foreign to her. She describes the stress of not having natural access to these feelings as the cause of her compulsive acts of violence and destructive behavior such as stalking, stealing, hurting people and even animals. She gets to the root of her struggle when she reads about sociopathy in college.
“I am a criminal without a record. I am a master of disguise. I have never been caught. I have rarely been sorry. I am friendly. I am responsible. I am invisible. I blend right in. I am a twenty-first century sociopath. And I’ve written this book because I know I’m not alone.”
Throughout the book, Gagne grows emotionally from her childhood days where she builds awareness on her pressure to act out, to her adult self, developing an entire new treatment program for her sociopathy because, as she discovers, no such thing exists. Her willingness to learn about her condition and change her destiny is impressive to say the least.
Sociopathy is generally known to lead to criminal behavior, and ultimately, emprisonment. Gagne attempts to change this outlook for herself and others by digging deep into the subject matter, to the point of obtaining a PhD degree in psychology and becoming a therapist.
It made me really happy to read that Gagne realizes she is privileged to have the opportunity of unpacking this mystery of her condition. Had she been born into a different gender, race, or class, she might have ended up misunderstood and punished early on, hiding her self diagnosis and quest for betterment, just like most of her sociopath peers.
This is a book that I couldn’t put down, and I expect it to do very well. It is such a commendable effort to bring awareness to sociopathy, which isn’t even defined in the dictionary anymore, even though the word is casually used by society at large for people and their characteristics that don’t come close to what sociopaths really go through. For the first time, this book portrays the point of view of the sociopath and presents it as an illness that can be overcome.
I'm very grateful to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the advance reader's copy. It means the world.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Animal cruelty, Stalking, Mental illness, Animal death, Bullying, and Forced institutionalization
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