Scan barcode
peggydean's review against another edition
4.25
Moderate: Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Addiction, Animal death, and Animal cruelty
Minor: Violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Self harm
zombiezami's review
5.0
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.
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
3.5
Graphic: Mental illness, Animal cruelty, and Cursing
Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Stalking, and Violence
Minor: Sexual content and Alcohol
sarahweyand's review
4.0
I want to try and keep this review brief because I know I could get really into it if I tried. I see some reviewers repeating a couple of points in the comments and I think they're interesting and want to address them in my own review.
This is obviously questionable and leads me to doubt some of her academic expertise, but I don't think this takes away from the themes of her story. At its essence, the message of this memoir is to spread awareness of sociopathy/antisocial personality disorder and help destigmatize it. While it would have been really nice to have some more credible sources from an academic and research perspective, it doesn't negate Patric's lived experiences and the fact that her purpose in writing this memoir is a good one.
2. Patric is a sociopath and therefore must be lying/embellishing most of her story. She even said at the start of the book that some conversations were reconstructed and not exact.
I do think it's important to read this book with a grain of salt when it's been written by a self-admitted chronic liar. However, most memoirs are like this. People don't remember the minutiae of every conversation they've ever had with the expectation they might write a memoir someday and need to recall it. This was actually my exact problem with THE GLASS CASTLE, an incredibly well-received memoir that doesn't make this disclaimer but I found to be more egregious in this aspect of storytelling than SOCIOPATH.
I think this story is fascinating and well-told, so I'm willing to give Patric some trust and credit in what she's trying to do. It's not a perfect book by any means, but I couldn't put it down.
Graphic: Stalking, Mental illness, and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Violence
torturedreadersdept's review
5.0
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
kirstym25's review
4.0
Graphic: Mental illness, Stalking, and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Toxic relationship
Minor: Alcohol and Violence
hallex32's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Mental illness and Stalking
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, and Violence
spacebras's review
4.5
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.
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 shekylosten's review
4.0
Graphic: Stalking
Moderate: Animal death, Toxic friendship, Animal cruelty, and Toxic relationship
dizzzybrook's review
4.0
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Blood, Gaslighting, Mental illness, and Stalking