God damn it this book ripped me open but also sewed me back together. I've followed AMT on social media for a little while now and I truly loved getting to know her through this book. it was an honor to be able to read it.

I was very much looking forward to this book but honestly the book was a little tough to get into and relate to.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of Men Have Called Her Crazy by Anna Marie Tendler!

dnf @ 30%

i was super excited to read this and hear about anna's story and everything that has happened to her in the past and how everything has affected in her in that way. unfortunately i think this fell short and did not have a good time while reading this which is why i chose to dnf it.

I’m glad this didn’t turn out to be a John Mulaney tell-all. It would have taken away from Tendler’s thesis and served as nothing but a distraction. This memoir is raw and vulnerable, but there is also a controlled element to her writing that left me feeling uneasy. Overall, an interesting examination of self-worth and patriarchy.

MEN HAVE CALLED HER CRAZY by Anna Marie Tendoer is genuinely one of the worst books I have ever read. Completely lacking point, self awareness, or purpose. This one is unfortunately a huge miss for me. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I appreciate Tendler’s willingness to open herself up and pour out her insides for this memoir-style thinkpiece. I found the way she walked the reader through glimpses of her past to understand her present breakdown vulnerable and all-encompassing. A particular favorite part for me was her writing about her relationship with her beloved dog, Petunia; she wrote about her grief with authentic feeling.

The writing was a little too train of thought for me to the detriment of over-explaining certain events instead of letting them sit as they are. But ultimately this kind of personal self-reflective novel seemed more for Tendler herself to self-analyse than for a reader to gain much personal insight.

The memoir tackles everything it promises and was shockingly vulnerable and relatable. This is a top woman’s read of the year for me!

I was really excited about this book as a lover of celebrity memoirs and a fan of Anna Marie's art but it unfortunately fell short of my expectations. It felt lacking in self-awareness and reflection and a lot of "blame" for everything seemed to fall to others. I found it difficult to connect with her or her story.

I received this book back in late May from Simon and Schuster through Net Galley. I must express that the number of times I picked it up and set it back down are not indicative of Tendler's writing or the quality of her memoir. In fact, the opposite. This book was so raw, real, and gripping that at times I connected too strongly with the text requiring a break for myself.
I commend Anna Marie Tendler for laying her story out for all to read. It was an excellent book and I appreciate her honesty and bravery in making it public.

I typically love a good celebrity or celebrity-adjacent memoir but Anna Marie Tendler was just insufferable. This book was hard to get into and it was hard to feel sympathetic for her and her extremely privileged lifestyle.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book. This was a book I was excited to read initially due to the themes of mental health and societal expectations of women. That said, I ended up DNF-ing this book at 19%.

It’s hard to offer feedback on a memoir, and it is especially difficult to do so for one that doesn’t work for you since it is someone’s lived experience translated to literature. Ultimately, I found for me that while some of these lived experiences of Tendler’s were relatable, her writing fell flat and wasn’t engaging enough for me to want to continue.

I was excited for this to subvert expectations, but sadly it wasn't in the way I expected. It Love a psych ward memoir, but this person seems to blame everyone else around her for her life. I think she has more work to do before being ready for a memoir.

This was a beautifully written reflection on unhealthy patterns in relationships and how the authors past contributed to her choices in partners. I’ve seen some other reviewers interpret this as an attack on men, but I personally did not feel that way. It seemed to me that the author simply wanted men to recognize their innate privilege and let that inform their actions. This was on track to be a five star read for me until the end. She seemed to be resentful of some of the mental health providers that were caring for her when their opinion of her diagnosis differed from her own. That, in my opinion, doesn’t always indicate sexism or misogyny as I experience this with patients of both sexes frequently. She seemed to interpret this as an attack on her for being female rather than a difference of opinion. She also took offense to common language that is used in mental health documentation, such as “patient denies” and seemed to think that this was an attack on her personally. I saw where she was coming from but as a mental health professional myself I also recognized issues with this. For anyone interested, we phrase it that way for liability purposes (for male and female pts) because all we have to go off of is what the patient reports. It’s not personal or any kind of attack. Overall, a very solid book and I could empathize with her but I took off a star for the last bit which was a bit uninformed.

I really wished I liked this more. I think the book misses the mark with the focus on men: instead, we get an obfuscated view of the woman herself, which is what I was hoping to learn more about in Men Have Called Her Crazy.

An early copy of this book was sent to me by NetGalley for review.

I will start with an unpopular sentence: I had no clue who Anna Marie Tendler was/is before I read this book. What attracted me to this book was the idea of a person checking herself into a psychiatric hospital.

I wanted to know what could possibly drive somebody to that point. To think that anybody or anything outside of a psych hospital was not going to be good enough.

And well, all I can say is WOW! I don't know how one person can have so much tragedy in their life, but also it seems like most of it steamed from the same person, or maybe people? A parent, and her choice in partners? Because let's face it, we are each responsible for whom we choose to share our lives with. Whether that be to leave a home we no longer wish to be in, to avoid breaking somebody's heart, or because it is easier to rely on somebody else financially than to venture out on our own.

I believe that Tendler faced a truly awful time when she was ready to leave the hospital and the therapist she had been seeing for years and trusted seemed to all of a sudden turn on her. I cannot imagine what that may have felt like for somebody in such an already vulnerable spot. I was glad that the other hospital staff came to her rescue, lift her up, and build her back up. I believe that without that she may have found herself worse than when she arrived there. And without the knowledge that she needed to extend her stay at the hospital, then who knows what may have happened.

I know that anxiety and self-harming are real-life issues that Tendler struggled with, but question still stands: exactly how much blame can we place on others before we have to wonder exactly how much is within our own control?

The moment I heard that Anna Marie Tendler was writing a memoir I knew I needed to read it, probably for the same reason many others were interested as well, but months later when the book finally came out it blew be away for reasons I didn't even consider. Tendler's memoir is searing and timely, beautiful and difficult. Her writing and observations are raw and honest and I loved every moment I got to spend with her.

I highly recommend this book is you enjoyed "No One Tells You This" by Glynnis MacNicol, "Grief Is for People" by Sloane Crosley, or "Make It Scream, Make It Burn" by Leslie Jamison.

“Here is the thing about men lying to women while telling them they are crazy or overreacting. The lying, the underplaying on their side, makes us doubt our intuition and intelligence, so eventually when suspicions are confirmed, when we find out we have been correct all along, we do go batshit fucking crazy. And it is warranted.” - Anna Marie Tendler, "Men Have Called Her Crazy"

In this book, we get an inside look into the author’s time in an inpatient mental health facility during the pandemic. It feels almost like 2 different books, but I did like what the author was trying to do here. Her analysis of society’s treatment of mentally ill women is good and reflective, but I feel like she was holding back with the same analysis of her own struggles in particular.

An intense, revealing portrait of a life full of trauma, pain, and suffering. I knew that things worked out for the author because I heard her being interviewed on the 10% Happier Podcast, but wasn’t so sure of that while reading the book. By the end she had done the hard work of getting herself out of the same repeating cycles of behavior and on to success.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an ARC of this book.

Well this one really hurt.
There were so many pieces of this memoir that felt familiar and so relatable. I empathized with AMT greatly with her mental health struggles and how they stemmed from her years of growing up. I think it's REALLY important to note that childhood trauma sticks and affects how we are as adults. With that being said, this book isn't an attack on men and I'm exhausted from seeing reviews saying that it is. This memoir is the effects of what specific parenting styles will do to someone's psyche and how those effects manifest later in life.
Because of AMT's self-esteem troubles & growing experiences, she tended to gravitate towards the one thing that was familiar territory to her; a person who wasn't good for her mental health. Even though this territory is painful and unhealthy, it's also a comfort because of the familiarity.
I thought this was an incredibly thoughtful and heartfelt book. I loved how she took us on her journey of her life and especially noted how she had changed over the years with her self-help/encouragement of friends and family. One of my favorite things she wrote about was how one of her doctors told her to follow her intuition and to stop the self-doubt, 'if something feels off, it probably is' sort of thing.
This memoir is all about finding yourself and finding how to love yourself despite what you were taught throughout your life. While I felt personally attacked through the majority of it, I absolutely love a personal growth journey.
I can't recommend this book enough to people who may have similar experiences as AMT. This is a heavy read and it will make you cry (or maybe that's just me) but it is such a beautiful self-discovery story.