i have a really hard time rating memoirs, as they are so personal to the author so for that reason i will adding a five star review for their bravery to share their story.

i struggled with this one. i was highly optimistic in the first 20% as understanding more about the experience of staying in a psychiatric hospital is something that my interest always gravitates to. especially that as a woman, where to this day it seems as if no doctor of any type can figure out our care.

with that said, the memoir is told with a dual timeline of her current stay in the psychiatric hospital to her past, sharing stories of her childhood as well as with previous partners quickly got old.

i found myself rushing through the chapters about her previous life in hopes of going back to her time in the psychiatric hospital. a major challenge that i had was with the amount of privilege that exuded from the entirety of the novel, which im unsure if that was supposed to be a use of satire that went completely over my head, or general cluelessness. the experience alone of staying in that specialized institution is a privilege that many cannot afford to make for their own health, but then to also blatantly point of the money and disposable income, with examples like the details on dog bills, was just uncomfortable to read.

i still enjoyed it, the elements of found family and the overall message regarding the time and effort that working on your mental health requires to see an outcome i thought rounded out nicely. it has an ending that felt like justice and left a feeling of hope in the readers.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Shuster for the ARC!

I was really hooked in the beginning of this memoir as I could personally relate to a lot of this. i wanted to feel that connection as the book continued but I somehow lost it. Overall, a very good read.

I enjoyed reading about the women who Anna shared her treatment with and about her therapy! Her artwork and love of passion projects. There were some spare references to her marriage to John, but I knew this memoir wasn't about that in the first place going in. I appreciated how she discussed all the different men she had dated throughout the years, and the passages were interesting. But so much of her life has come from immense privilege in a roundabout way from these men for the life she was able to live. I feel like she learned a lot about herself, for living for men, before living for herself. I appreciated her mental illness, the help she received, and the navigation getting there. I think there were gaps in this book that did not have a connection for me, but again it's a memoir and someone's life. I don't feel right rating that! The audiobook was really appreciated from her.

A successful memoir requires a level of self-awareness and introspection that Tendler seems to be currently incapable of. She chronicles her time in therapy and her struggles with her mental health but completely lacks any sense of personal responsibility or accountability. Life just happens to her, apparently, and it is all the fault of the (mostly) men she happens to find herself with. This felt like reading a teenager's diary, but unfortunately for Tendler, she's nearly 40.

An intense read for those who are also having issues with anxiety and depression, but reassuring that there is hope for managing these issues in life.
A definite must read for those who need to see what misogyny and a lack of care can do to your loved ones.

I have a hard time rating and reviewing memoirs because it feels as if I am criticizing someone’s life experiences, In this case, traumatic life experiences.

That said, this book was a huge let down. I was hopeful that this would be.a mental health memoir from the perspective of a healed person, but it’s clear that she has some more work to do and a lot of her narratives are toxic at worst and misinformed and concerning at best.

I did not know what to expect with this memoir, and I found myself pleasantly surprised as the vulnerability and honesty within it. If you’re looking for gossip about past relationships, don’t bother with this memoir. Instead, I found myself learning from her insights into mental health, partnerships, and love.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
I get so nervous early reviewing memoirs because I feel like the author will definitely read them, but in this case I am not nervous.
First of all, if you’re looking for John Mulaney gossip, look elsewhere.
This is a book about strength in mental health crisis. This is a very raw and in depth look at depression and its effects, and the way it changes your relationships.
This was a beautiful story, and I’m grateful Anna decided to share it.

This book is so important in elevating the harm and depression that women often hide until it’s too late. I love how plain-spoken this is — the author’s voice is clear and strong while describing deeply disturbing episodes. In a lot of ways, this intentionality to staying even-keeled is the whole point: if we lose our tempers, we are crazy. If we show emotion, we are irrational. If we don’t keep quiet when men get loud, we are difficult.

And they literally never think about the power they wield or the narrative they control:

“I don't believe Theo was malicious, or mean, or that he wanted me to feel subordinate to his power. I just think he did not consider it. Like men since the dawn of time, like so many men who have passed through my life, he simply did not consider it.”

This book is also a really hard book to read. I had to set it down and come back multiple times.



Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my review copy!

Many thanks to Simon and Shuster and NetGalley for this eARC of Men Have Called Her Crazy.

This book is an honest account of mental health - the good, the bad, and the things that, when expressed and explained, are complicated and ugly. I think Anna does a good job of expressing those things and making you understand the pain she has experienced, regardless of how shocking it is at times and how unrelatable it might be for some readers. For instance, I think one of her strengths is writing about anxiety. I can't imagine that it is easy to put the experience of anxiety into words and make them come off the page in such a visceral way, but she did. I also thought the essay format worked well for this. I read most of this book in a single sitting - it's quick and very tightly written.

At times, I wished for this book, particularly the second half, to be a bit more...self-aware? With some of the events and thoughts, I think it would have been helpful for Anna to take the time to dig into her actions more than she did. The back half of the book very quickly cascades through numerous events, told almost entirely in an objective manner. In a memoir though, I want to hear what someone thinks. I want them to reflect on things. I want to know why she thought she was acting the way she was, especially because, by that point, she had spent so much time working on herself and her mental health.

I think it is really hard to rate memoirs, to the point that I sometimes just don't bother. How can you rate someone's life story, their vulnerability, their choices? I don't really know if it is for me to judge. I know that I respect Anna a lot for writing this, but I also know that I walked away from the book almost wishing that it wasn't such a quick read. I wanted a little more discussion, more reflection, and more direction as she moves forward in her life. I think that would have tied the entire book together a bit better.

3.25 stars.

Where do I even begin....

It feels mean of me to rate a memoir because this is, after all, someone's personal life experiences, but at the same time.... The storytelling here is often unbearable to read, and I found myself pained at just how unwilling Anna seems to be to take accountability. The impact this book had on me was the creeping sense that this was a book I shouldn't be reading in the same way that Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department was an album I should not be listening to. This is too personal and too raw, and not, I think, in the way that Anna wants it to be.

Ugh. I just feel so uncomfortable right now.

Such a brutal and honest book. Tendler weaves her pain beautifully throughout this honest reflection of her life.

WOW, wow, wow, wow.....WOW! This book was heartbreaking, beautiful, haunting and so authentic. I am so thankful that I was able to dive into this book and learn more about the author. I genuinely ran a gambit of emotions while diving into this book and it kept me quickly reading this novel. Thanks so much to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for this ARC!

I admittedly had high expectations for this book going in, but I ultimately found it difficult to get through. While I appreciate Tendler's vulnerability and still really like the concept of this memoir, I found it a bit too disjointed. I found it difficult to connect with her narrative voice and, as some other reviewers have mentioned, I wish this book hadn't been written so soon after some of the experiences Tendler mentions.

Thanks o NetGally for the ARC ebook. I had never heard of Anna Marie Tendler before requesting this book, but I have been hearing about how good this one is! Anna shares this as a memoir, which is also something I did not realize until I was about 20% in, and then it all made more sense to me. I appreciate how vulnerable Anna was throught the story, and I could resonate with most of the themes. This is a great book that I absolutely recommend.

Stopped at 48%

I was looking forward to this, but I struggled a lot. I feel like she’s still too close to some of the things discussed, and there could have been more self reflection. I honestly had to stop after the chapter about her small wrists.

I tried switching to the audiobook and still struggled. I may try this again at another point as I was excited to read it.

This book feels like a deep sigh and a huge hug from a friend who felt like you needed it.

After a few very public years, Anna Marie Tendler delivers this book in just a raw and emotional way that feels familiar and lived in for many women. As a millennial, this felt particularly real since we experienced things at the same time. It's brutal

This book isn't resolved. Tendler's problem's aren't resolved and that's ok. This book is a memoir written by a woman who has had a series of relationships with men where the relationship is more important than any individual in it.

While we were waiting for a few big names, those don't show up. Instead, we get the events and feelings surrounding those very big moments. Through a divorce and pandemic, Tendler reflects on the moments (and men) who paved the way for her to land where she is now- and that story is still unfinished.

Those unfinished moments, however, could be painful for people to read, specifically anyone dealing with an eating disorder. There are times where it feels like reading someone's emotional LiveJournal entries, however, there's something here that is easy to relate to and forced me to examine my own self and my relationships with men.

This is book is really interesting. I love learning about people's lives and how their experiences helped to shape them. Were there men in Anna's past that treated her poorly? Absolutely. Was it different from many other women's experiences with men? Not at all. I think she could have written only about everything else in her life that lead her to the treatment center and it would have been the same story. With that said, I think it's brave to relive, write down, and share past traumas with others. It's a well-written book but I think it missed the mark a little bit.

I think a lot of the negative comments I’ve seen around this book are fair. However, I felt like it was really raw and as someone who struggles with their mental health, I saw so many of my own ugly traits in Anna. I think that’s why I’m able to relate and come at my review from a more sympathetic perspective even though she is at the end of the day a privileged woman.

The portion of the book that details her time in the hospital with the other women was captivating and very well told. I think some of the flashbacks to her experiences with men could come off as petty or that she was hung up on “lesser traumas”. Yet, she expresses by the end that she does not truly hate men and I think we miss a portion of why she felt so strongly about staying away from men by the absence of what happened in her marriage.

Overall, other reviewers may or may not be right that she needed more time of self reflection before she wrote this. For me, I liked that she’s still imperfect and working towards her healing. Mental health is not something that is an easy fix and rewiring your negative thoughts is really difficult. I appreciated her honesty and the chapter about Petunia nearly took me out completely. This wasn’t the book people wanted from Anna but it is her story to tell.

I love how unapologetic Anna Marie Tendler is with sharing her mental health story — her ruminations on her own history, her inner monologue, her self-doubt, her relationship with Petunia and her grief over the life she once knew. My heart breaks for her. I listen to the audiobook version, which is read by the author. I always enjoy it when the author narrates their own book — especially with memoirs — as it brings an added level of connection and intimacy.

The memoir takes place after the dissolution of Tendler's marriage. Anyone who pays attention to social media knows her ex-husband is comedian John Mulaney. Anna seems to know we know, but she won’t address it. Instead, we tiptoe around the identity of her husband and any details of their relationship. I understand her likely reasoning for making that choice, but the failure to acknowledge it becomes notable on its own. The exclusion feels significant here as Tendler delves into other influential relationships throughout the memoir. I'm not saying we needed all the dirty details, but I feel it would have been less obtrusive if the relationship had been addressed once in stride with the others and then we moved on.

That aside, I sort of love the fact that she doesn't talk about it. This is her memoir and she gets to decide what is and isn't shared.

Thanks to the author, NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.