Kristin Dombek

I have never read a book written by a friend, especially not one this far away from publication (this was released in 2016, I met her in 2020, and I'm reading it now in 2024) and it was so disorienting I am not sure I can do this again. All of my friends are writers, none of them fiction writers, almost all of them magazine writers, and now I'm wondering if I should just buy my friends books and not read them because this really irritated my schizophrenia in a way I don't know if I like. But Kristin is smart and incredible and she made this ending sweetness instead of gore, which would have been the acceptable ending, which is just the kind of person she is.… (meer)

it lost me. started off strong but I think it's fair to say I did not get any particular insights out of this book. i like how she starts by reframing the conventional victim-of-narcissist narrative to show how this narrative privileges the storyteller. in other words, by telling a story of someone you think is a narcissist, it's really all about you and your victimhood becomes the story. so it may be narcissistic to believe you're the victim of a narcissist. on the other hand. anyway the book lost me with the interminable studies that seem to show nothing in particular, and the anecdotes which seem not to add up. all of which points to the idea of narcissism itself being a canard. which may be the point. or?… (meer)