Thank you for the ARC. I picked this up because I may have been raised by a narcissist. Or maybe dad is just an asshole. I try to be careful with any books or videos that may make me suspect good people might be narcissists. People can be mean and flawed and not have any mental health reasons or personality defects at all. I would like to be given grace if I temporarily act like a dick.


However, I also like to be educated. I love the explanations about why these people are the way they are.

Sadly, many of us have encountered a narcissist, whether in romantic, family, work, or other relationships. Too often, narcissists blend into the environment and present themselves as charming, generous, caring, compassionate, and more, but they truly aren't who or what they pretend to be.
This book provided validation for me as someone who's encountered narcissists. It comforted me to know that there are patterns that I can spot, and that I'm not alone in feeling the way I have.
This book is heteronormative, which was a disappointment.

*Thanks to Netgalley for an eARC. All opinions contained within this review are my own.

Thank you net galley for an early release of this book. As the description drew me in and to request the book, It did not end up being what i thought and just wasn’t for me.

If only I had this book in my hands six years ago, the time, money, and mental health I could have saved. Lots of good information contained within these pages, I had to stop highlighting because the whole thing would have been covered in highlighter, what to look for, how to navigate through, and ultimately come out the other side.

Side note: he lives with his mother. I bought a brand new house 😉

Unfortunately I found this book to be rather surface-level and generalizing. I was hoping to find a more nuanced take on narcisstic abuse, and while I trust that this author is speaking from both her own personal experience, as well as that of her clients'... this just didn't do it for me. There was also a number of sweeping "you got this!" "I believe you!" kind of statements that come across as a bit strange from an author you're not personally interacting with. I sort of knew from the moment the author described herself as "superstrong" that it wouldn't be the right tone of book for me. Felt more like an inspirational quote gallery than a well-sourced, psychological deep-dive. It didn't feel very professional, there was too much opinion in this.

This is a great examination of abuse. Although there are books out there that have a better take on the subject. This book does a good job of breaking down the issues and pulling out helpful hints to get you through the trauma.

This book was ok! It didn’t really highlight anything I wasn’t aware of. Some parts were a bit repetitive and the flow would fall off track. I was hoping to learn more about the behavior issue. It was very surface level

I have not read many books about this abuse .I am a survivor.I could relate to some of the stories in the book.This can be a tough read if you don’t know the symptoms or are in this type of relationship.I did feel there was a lot of opinions in the book and needed more information to backup the book .Thank you netgalley for this early copy .

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this as an ARC for my honest review.

I was very excited to receive this book as a survivor of narcisstic abuse and because i have not read a book similar to this.

However, this book is significantly lacking in sources, there are many claims made in this book that do not appear to be backed up by research or peer reviewed sources. That's the biggest issue I had with this book.

There were several generalizations of things like "all narcissists do this" but again with nothing to back it up.

It reads more like an opinion book rather than an educational/informational novel. It is not objective for the most part and leans heavily subjective.

I do not know that I would recommend this book for those reasons unless there were to be more cited sources throughout. Ideally I would imagine this book is supposed to come across as educational, researched, etc. With plenty of evidence to back claims up. More like a scientific or psychological book. If the author included more research and sources, it would have been a much more beneficial read for me.