i don’t have the proper words to describe how “men have called her crazy” impacted me, despite its faults.

in a pointed and classy move, tendler avoids mentioning her recognizable ex-husband by name and eschews any salacious details, keeping the focus on her. while i admit i was waiting for any nugget of gossip, i think this choice was the right one. by doing so, tendler takes the space in her own right, avoiding allowing her ex-husband to co-opt any more of her life. after living through my own ex-lover’s betrayal and twisting of the knife, i empathize deeply with tendler, and am in awe of how she managed to forge ahead and carve out her own niches. i’m still working on that myself. that being said, tendler still feels lost in her own narrative, and hasn't had the time or distance to come to terms with everything that has happened. as a result, this book ends up feeling unfinished, and would have instead benefited from being the original photography book with vignettes that i heard was originally proposed.

When requesting this book, I expected a deep-dive into the psyche of a woman who has been thrust into the public eye due to her connection to a man. I had hoped, and was encouraged by the title of this book, that Tendler would examine the ways in which she has been depicted and discussed in the media, and the impact such treatment has had upon her. This book is not that. It is not nearly as thoughtful as I had hoped, and lacked a significant amount of self-awareness that is desperately needed when writing a book of this variety. I found it hard to get through this book, and wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't independently a fan of Tendler.

This one just did not work for me even though I love memoirs about mental health. The book read mostly as a retelling of relationships and her current stay in a psychiatric facility but didn’t do much more than that. I couldn’t get myself invested and was bored while reading. It also rubbed me the wrong way to keep saying “fucking men” but then talking so much about men and how they’re centered in her life.

I got maybe 20% into this one, wasn't feeling it, and have yet to find the will to pick it back up. I think my expectations weren't aligned with what I've seen of this book unfortunately.

This was a well-structured book with a really strong voice. I thought Anna Marie was a great storyteller. I loved how the book alternated between chapters about her coming of age/figuring out her career and more "current day" chapters about her time in the treatment center. As someone who prefers nonfiction that is formatted as a narrative, it really worked well for me. I'd recommend this book to fiction readers who are looking to try nonfiction. Additionally, I want to say that I don't understand why people are reading this book to judge Anna Marie's life choices. This was a really interesting and vulnerable story, and you shouldn't criticize her for what she was willing to share with an audience. If you were entertained by it, then don't be a hypocrite.

i was really excited for this but this was unbearable to read. this book felt more like a diary with a lot of trauma dumping. and it didn't really seem like the author really healed or grew from it? she just seemed like she allowed her hatred and rage to fester and now she's just a bitter person. not a fan!

Alllll the trigger warnings (obvi) but this is engaging and well written. I was incredibly hyped for this memoir when it was announced and it didn't disappoint although it did take me a while to get through. Tendler is incredibly honest and forthcoming in this book which I really appreciated (and recognize how hard that must be given her life experiences).

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of my most anticipated books of 2024 and always remember the higher you climb the harder you fall, and boy did this one fall. I wasn't excited for this one due to the celebrity tell all potential it had; I had followed AMT for years on Instagram and had already been a fan of her art. When I first started reading this I was chalking up my difficulty getting into it to the fact that this is a debut novel so growing pains are to be expected but as I fought and fought to convince myself to read it I had to start really looking at why so I gave it one last try and said that if I can't at least pin point what is making it an unenjoyable read for me then I would continue on. About 25% of the way I started being able to sense a pattern in what I disliked about the book. It wasn't the writing, which if I'm being honest, was actually better than I anticipated; it was the content. She makes it very clear that she doesn't like men and that they are not to be trusted which- girl, same- but then she would start to expand on why and then give her personal examples and they just weren't good. I don't know if this book needed to be written years later when she really had a chance to grow from her experiences but there was this sense of AMT being so lost and it was never resolved. The things she did question or work to improve were not the things that needed to be. Her huge complaints and the cause of all her life issues were those of a teenage girl. AMT never had anyone in her life give her tough love and it shows. Someone else said that this book is the result of an artist's temperament without actually being an artist and as soon as I heard it rang true. She's just coming off as winey and not self-aware and there was only so much of that I could take.

This was DNFd at 30%.

As much as I wanted to love this I couldn’t. The way this comes off is that the author never fully accepted her diagnosis or the reason why she checked herself into the hospital to begin with.

I’ll start with a confession: I didn’t realize until after finishing this memoir that the author was the ex-wife of John Mulaney. He is referred to only in passing with respect to the end of her marriage as the author is checking into a mental health facility for a short-term program. And ultimately I’m glad there’s no salacious gossip here to detract from what is a moving, sincere and often infuriating reflection on the author’s life and dealings with men. I do think this may have been written too soon - the author still has healing to do and I think that’s often evident. I wish her well.

Also, I lost my heart dog this past year after 12 years together and I sobbed reading about Petunia. So TW for that.

Pub Date: 8/13/24
Review Published: 10/30/24
eARC received from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Anna Marie Tendler might be known as the ex-wife of comedian John Mulaney, but this book is not a rehashing of their relationship or breakup. Instead, Tendler focuses her narrative during the Covid pandemic when she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital due to depression and extreme suicidal ideation. She details the hospital house she lived in with other female roommates, having made it clear to her doctor that she was unwilling to cohabitate with men thanks to a string of heartbreaks and hurts.

In addition to her mental health, Tendler also discusses her parents' divorce and complicated relationships with her mom and dad. When a psychiatrist tries to explain how her mom's rage affected her childhood, Tendler writes that she wishes he could see the times her mom drove her to school or cooked with her. She's more than one thing, Tendler notes, a good reminder that all of us are more than our wounds and worst impulses.

Men Have Called Her Crazy is a raw story about a woman's struggle to survive in a world that hasn't always been kind to her. There are graphic depictions of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, misogyny, and debilitating depression, so keep that in mind if you decide to read this memoir. I'm thankful for vulnerable people like Tendler who are brave enough to share the darkness in their stories as it shines a light for others to know they're not alone.

I really enjoyed this memoir. It's a raw dissection of what women feel when pushed to their breaking point. The growth and healing of the author throughout was very inspiring. I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in mental health and memoirs.

Memoirs are one of my favourite genres to read because I can step inside and experience the author's thoughts, feelings, and opinions. However, they are also a very hard genre to read and review for the same reasons.

It's always interesting to put yourself in others' shoes and consider how you would react in the same scenarios compared to what the author actually did. Have I come to the same conclusions or experienced the same feelings?

With this memoir, I've danced on the edges of where the author took herself. I don't agree with many of her opinions but I respect and can see how the author herself has gotten there.

I'd recommend this book for those who like to see things through the eyes of others without judgment to the author's conclusions.

not everyone needs to write a memoir…

thank you to netgalley and simon & schuster for the digital arc!

men have called her crazy follows anna marie tendler's experience with mental health, specifically chronicling her recent stay in a psychiatric hospital as well as pivotal moments of her life. an undercurrent throughout these experiences is her distrust and even sometimes hatred of the men around her. she stays in a hospital unit with only female patients so she does not have to be around men, she details her dating history of men who exhibited little to no care for her and her well-being, she debates the merits of freezing her eggs after her divorce, etc.

with all due respect, this book should not have been written and published so soon. this is not a hot take, but i think it is important for publishers/readers/whoever to not demand so much of people going through public personal drama that those people feel compelled to monetarily capitalize on the new-found attention. and like...if you're going to capitalize on your very public and messy divorce, at least talk about the divorce!! i'm sure she couldn't because of legal reasons, or maybe she just didn't want to, but it is a disservice to the themes of this memoir to totally tip-toe around a very pivotal moment in one's life, especially when amt centers men in every aspect of her life.

and also...this woman absolutely refuses to engage in healthy introspection. when a medical professional tells her that her issues with men could actually be attributed to her difficult relationship with her mother (diagnosed mommy issues...ouch), she balks at the idea and dismisses it as another instance of men not listening to her. but girl, i just spent the whole book listening to you and i came to the same conclusion. amt details the fights she would have with her mother, her mother's verbal and emotional outbursts in the wake of her divorce from amt's father, the guilt that amt feels having her mother watch her dog while she is in the hospital. and yet none of this is raising a flag for you? only men are the problem? ok cool

aside from the lack of introspection, amt also refuses to take accountability for any of the experiences here. like yes, of course teenage dating experience suck, and yes, modern dating is terrible. but why do we not learn from past experiences? why do we keep centering men? surely we have to do something else.

this memoir isn't the worst thing i've ever read, but it certainly didn't need to exist. sorry!

This was such a raw and beautiful memoir about mental health and grief for the things we lose when we lose ourselves.

I didn't know what to expect from Anna's writing so it was a pleasant surprise to see that her artistic talent seeped into her written words.

Ultimately, this was fine. I think Anna Marie Tendler is a talented writer but the subject of the book is a little overplayed - not because it is invalid, but in the sense that her approach to it have been done many times before (and more successfully). The most moving bits of the book were when she was expressing genuine love for her close friends and her dog, but the parts that the book revolves around - the hating men - felt a little unconvincing. I think she has gotten too much flack for "not having a job" - like she is an artist and wrote this book - but I think it is fair to point out the ways she is still centering men. Her feminist analysist rang true but it was still a bit shallow and underdeveloped, something you could read on Pinterest or something & it would take less time. However! I still would read something else the author published if it was more focused on her as a person, or maybe even fiction, or about art. Thanks for the arc!

I went into this memoir with no prior knowledge of who the author is. I have since learned about her background as well as her marriage to a very famous comedian. I feel with this now at the forefront of my mind it does slightly affect my rating of this memoir.

Previously, I read this at face value. While I had some of my own critiques about structure and, at times tone, I felt that the story was presented in a very readable and accessible fashion. I couldn’t relate to everything the author had gone through but I was able to empathize well enough. I did find her tangents about men were a bit too much. I wish that she refrained from putting the blame on all men. Such broad statements are harmful and untrue.

Now knowing more of her background, it seems like the author intentionally left out huge parts of her life experience. I respect her choice not to talk about her ex-husband, however, I feel that his influence in her life got her to the point of hospitalization. It makes the memoir seem less genuine when a huge chunk of her life is not addressed.

I’m not a fan of the cover. In fact, if I saw it on a shelf, I would not even glance in that direction. You are probably wondering why I would pick up this book. I received an email from the publisher based on my previous reviews of Simon and Schuster titles and to give this one a try. After reading a brief description of the story, I decided to take a chance and read it.
I always admire when people share their stories of struggles and tribulations because we all have them, but the story left me feeling meh. I feel bad saying that because I love rooting for people and hoping they get to a place where they can find peace and happiness. The writing was ok and unfortunately I should have stopped reading after the first chapter.

It’s very hard to rate and review memoirs, because you’re literally projecting your thoughts on someone else’s story.

With that, I was not a fan of this book. I think I expected something different going into it. I just don’t think the author conveyed the messages she was trying to convey.

Thanks to the publisher for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

I went into the memoir kind of blind, or at least in the sense that I didn’t know who the author was. (Or who she was connected to.) And while I’m glad that didn’t spoil my view of her at all, I kind of wished I knew it before- even though she doesn’t really talk about this person at all. (I won’t say but you can google if you’re curious.)

I think this was a great book of feminine rage. I was agreeing with the author throughout the book, and really felt for her. I honestly thought it was a great memoir, but I’ve heard others complain she didn’t have enough development. Honestly, she’s not in a psych ward anymore, so isn’t that enough development? I might also be a little biased because she had a French Bulldog (named Petunia! How adorable!!) and just the way she talked about her pup- well, I understood.

I think you’ll like this book if the title alone appeals to you, and you’re a fan of memoirs. The beautiful writing really sealed the deal for me.