Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Sociopath

I feel like our historic idea of what sociopathy is makes it really hard not to buy into a stereotype that it's a negative thing, And this is a fascinating insight into someone who's just trying to live a "normal" life, while dealing with being unable to feel empathy.

This reads like a novel in some ways, with full, detailed conversations often recalled. And of course these can't be entirely accurate, but Gagne seems to have such self awareness that I was willing to believe the gist of what she tries to convey. She doesn't try to defend or excuse her bad behaviour, nor does she paint others unfavourably in relation to her sociopathy. So although this has to be read through Gagne's eyes, I think she is very good at relaying the information with a detachment that allows for objectivity.

I really feel for Gagne, but it's incredible how she's managed to work to understand herself and, sociopath or not, I think we could all benefit from that kind of self-acceptance.

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emmakwilkinson's review against another edition

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dark informative medium-paced

4.0

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zombiezami's review

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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.

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scorpiobookfairy's review

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slow-paced

4.0

I don't like to rate memoirs for content because it's someone's life and I don't want to judge... the only reason I took off a star of my normal 5 for all memoirs is redundancy. I felt like I was being hit over the head with a dead fish called "I don't feel emotions like other people"... it needed a little more editing, it could have been told smoother imho.

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