What do you think?
Rate this book
Men Have Called Her Crazy
A powerful memoir that reckons with mental health as well as the insidious ways men impact the lives of women.
In early 2021, popular artist Anna Marie Tendler checked herself into a psychiatric hospital following a year of crippling anxiety, depression and self-harm. Over two weeks, she underwent myriad psychological tests, participated in numerous therapy sessions, connected with fellow patients and experienced profound breakthroughs, such as when a doctor noted, “There is a you inside that feels invisible to those looking at you from the outside.”
In Men Have Called Her Crazy, Tendler recounts her hospital experience as well as pivotal moments in her life that preceded and followed. As the title suggests, many of these moments are impacted by men: unrequited love in high school; the twenty-eight-year-old she lost her virginity to when she was sixteen; the frustrations and absurdities of dating in her mid-thirties; and her decision to freeze her eggs as all her friends were starting families.
This stunning literary self-portrait examines the unreasonable expectations and pressures women face in the 21st century. Yet overwhelming and despairing as that can feel, Tendler ultimately offers a message hope. Early in her stay in the hospital, she says, “My wish for myself is that one day I’ll reach a place where I can face hardship without trying to destroy myself.” By the end of the book, she fulfills that wish.
In early 2021, popular artist Anna Marie Tendler checked herself into a psychiatric hospital following a year of crippling anxiety, depression and self-harm. Over two weeks, she underwent myriad psychological tests, participated in numerous therapy sessions, connected with fellow patients and experienced profound breakthroughs, such as when a doctor noted, “There is a you inside that feels invisible to those looking at you from the outside.”
In Men Have Called Her Crazy, Tendler recounts her hospital experience as well as pivotal moments in her life that preceded and followed. As the title suggests, many of these moments are impacted by men: unrequited love in high school; the twenty-eight-year-old she lost her virginity to when she was sixteen; the frustrations and absurdities of dating in her mid-thirties; and her decision to freeze her eggs as all her friends were starting families.
This stunning literary self-portrait examines the unreasonable expectations and pressures women face in the 21st century. Yet overwhelming and despairing as that can feel, Tendler ultimately offers a message hope. Early in her stay in the hospital, she says, “My wish for myself is that one day I’ll reach a place where I can face hardship without trying to destroy myself.” By the end of the book, she fulfills that wish.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published August 13, 2024
1250 people are currently reading
47120 people want to read
About the author
Anna Marie Tendler
4 books324 followersAnna Marie Tendler is an artist and writer. She holds a master’s degree in costume studies from New York University. She lives in Connecticut with her three cats, Chimney, Moon, and Butter.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,341 reviews
July 7, 2025
this book is compulsively readable, but it isn't honest.
the best mental health memoirs are wildly brave, willing to relate moments of what seems to be stunning selfishness or carelessness or cruelty in the aim of carrying across the reality of these illnesses.
you’d be hard pressed to find a moment in which anna marie tendler is willing to let you see her at her worst. as a teen or almost teen fighting with older men, she speaks in lengthy, therapist-approved paragraphs while they struggle to get sentences out. she spends substantial time in intensive mental health treatment, but she makes sure to tell us she completes her postgrad program with barely even an extension.
ultimately, she wanted to write a book that would prove her to be a victim of everything: circumstances, relationships, her career.
i think tendler has been through a ton, and i think (especially based on the diagnoses we share) her brain must be a truly hostile place to be.
but i don’t think she needs to convince us as readers that her repeated tendency to financially rely on men (often right before ending the relationship) is a bad thing that somehow happened to her. i don’t need to be convinced that her career is one of accomplishment, when it seems like that wasn’t possible for her.
i didn’t come to this book for a tell-all about a shocking celebrity divorce (although i will say, the traces found here paint a very different picture from the public perception). i came for honesty, the kind of honesty that feels brave and destigmatizing and beautiful. and i didn’t get it.
i came away from this book thinking that anna marie tendler is a complex and interesting person, trying her best to be kind. that didn't come from her writing, but in spite of it. she writes with walls up, trying to convince us that she is good and likable, telling us time and again the times that she was angry and chose peace, spending the last chapter of the book refuting excerpts of her psychological analysis, telling us why she is not mad, she is not hateful, she is not not not. she tells, never shows.
the best memoirs are shockingly vulnerable, and the best moments of this one are too—the chapters spent with tendler's beloved dog petunia left me teary eyed.
but by and large, this is defensive.
on top of that, there's a really unhealthy-feeling sense of competing that anyone who has suffered bad mental health spells in high school will recognize. sharing how much she weighed, or how stunned professionals were by just how bad her mental health was, or the insertions of her exhausting monologue to every inane moment...it's a different version of the same desire to impress the reader as her lack of vulnerability.
also the writing is not very good. sorry! now i'm done.
bottom line: an unpopular opinion that surprised even me.
(thanks to the publisher for the arc)
the best mental health memoirs are wildly brave, willing to relate moments of what seems to be stunning selfishness or carelessness or cruelty in the aim of carrying across the reality of these illnesses.
you’d be hard pressed to find a moment in which anna marie tendler is willing to let you see her at her worst. as a teen or almost teen fighting with older men, she speaks in lengthy, therapist-approved paragraphs while they struggle to get sentences out. she spends substantial time in intensive mental health treatment, but she makes sure to tell us she completes her postgrad program with barely even an extension.
ultimately, she wanted to write a book that would prove her to be a victim of everything: circumstances, relationships, her career.
i think tendler has been through a ton, and i think (especially based on the diagnoses we share) her brain must be a truly hostile place to be.
but i don’t think she needs to convince us as readers that her repeated tendency to financially rely on men (often right before ending the relationship) is a bad thing that somehow happened to her. i don’t need to be convinced that her career is one of accomplishment, when it seems like that wasn’t possible for her.
i didn’t come to this book for a tell-all about a shocking celebrity divorce (although i will say, the traces found here paint a very different picture from the public perception). i came for honesty, the kind of honesty that feels brave and destigmatizing and beautiful. and i didn’t get it.
i came away from this book thinking that anna marie tendler is a complex and interesting person, trying her best to be kind. that didn't come from her writing, but in spite of it. she writes with walls up, trying to convince us that she is good and likable, telling us time and again the times that she was angry and chose peace, spending the last chapter of the book refuting excerpts of her psychological analysis, telling us why she is not mad, she is not hateful, she is not not not. she tells, never shows.
the best memoirs are shockingly vulnerable, and the best moments of this one are too—the chapters spent with tendler's beloved dog petunia left me teary eyed.
but by and large, this is defensive.
on top of that, there's a really unhealthy-feeling sense of competing that anyone who has suffered bad mental health spells in high school will recognize. sharing how much she weighed, or how stunned professionals were by just how bad her mental health was, or the insertions of her exhausting monologue to every inane moment...it's a different version of the same desire to impress the reader as her lack of vulnerability.
also the writing is not very good. sorry! now i'm done.
bottom line: an unpopular opinion that surprised even me.
(thanks to the publisher for the arc)
August 14, 2024
very tumblr 2013 (derogatory)
August 16, 2024
I want to be very clear that my opinions on AMT are shaped entirely by this memoir and not celebrity gossip!!
Profoundly unlikeable. Discovering that she has got to 37 and has never had an actual job, rather just always managed to date rich men who will fund her lifestyle genuinely almost made me fall off my chair. When the book was announced, I found it frustrating that she was only being referenced in the context of a man who had been in her life. But after reading it, it turns out that’s really all there is to her story.
A lot of her anxiety stems from feeling like she hasn’t accomplished anything, and honestly, I don’t know how to say this nicely: she hasn’t.
Yes, the patriarchy is real, but that doesn’t mean you have to place so much of your self-worth in men. I learnt this when I was sixteen. This book is not about the institutional misogyny that women face (especially in the medical world where a lot of this book takes place). Instead it is a laundry list of her ex-boyfriends, which makes the SNL sized absence even more notable and embarrassing. Plus (and this is mean) it’s hard to take complaints about heartbreak seriously when rich people say it. Imagine dealing with heartbreak *and* needing to go to work every day.
I don’t have the luxury to quit working, take sad pictures of myself in my multi-million pound house, and sell those photos for thousands just because I’m divorcing a famous person. You’re not a Sally Rooney protagonist. You have agency and the ability to make decisions in your own life—it’s wild to be 39 and still not realising that.
It’s this "Sally Rooney syndrome" where you believe you’re some angel fallen out of God’s favour and should be given endless sympathy, while everyone else around you is just Bad, with no depth of their own.
I truly believe having a job would fix 99% of her problems. People criticise John Mulaney for making his career out of jokes about loving his wife, but at least he *had* a career!
Profoundly unlikeable. Discovering that she has got to 37 and has never had an actual job, rather just always managed to date rich men who will fund her lifestyle genuinely almost made me fall off my chair. When the book was announced, I found it frustrating that she was only being referenced in the context of a man who had been in her life. But after reading it, it turns out that’s really all there is to her story.
A lot of her anxiety stems from feeling like she hasn’t accomplished anything, and honestly, I don’t know how to say this nicely: she hasn’t.
Yes, the patriarchy is real, but that doesn’t mean you have to place so much of your self-worth in men. I learnt this when I was sixteen. This book is not about the institutional misogyny that women face (especially in the medical world where a lot of this book takes place). Instead it is a laundry list of her ex-boyfriends, which makes the SNL sized absence even more notable and embarrassing. Plus (and this is mean) it’s hard to take complaints about heartbreak seriously when rich people say it. Imagine dealing with heartbreak *and* needing to go to work every day.
I don’t have the luxury to quit working, take sad pictures of myself in my multi-million pound house, and sell those photos for thousands just because I’m divorcing a famous person. You’re not a Sally Rooney protagonist. You have agency and the ability to make decisions in your own life—it’s wild to be 39 and still not realising that.
It’s this "Sally Rooney syndrome" where you believe you’re some angel fallen out of God’s favour and should be given endless sympathy, while everyone else around you is just Bad, with no depth of their own.
I truly believe having a job would fix 99% of her problems. People criticise John Mulaney for making his career out of jokes about loving his wife, but at least he *had* a career!
August 15, 2024
I was an Anna Marie Tendler stan before this book and thought she could do no wrong but alas, this book is giving poor insight, terrible distress tolerance, and major personality disorder vibes. I am begging this woman to learn a single coping skill and get/keep a job. I am also begging her to stop centering men in her life and then blaming them for everything (I cannot believe she is making me defend men right now).
August 15, 2024
Jemima Kirke 'I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much' .gif
:/
:/
March 6, 2024
Babe wake up, new bible just dropped
August 14, 2024
i like white women more when i know nothing about them
August 17, 2024
men (and women) have called her so petite and so small with delicate tiny wrists, did you know she can’t even wear bracelets?!
I’m incredibly disappointed for a few reasons. I understand that recovery is a life-long process, but if you’re publishing a book (despite whatever trigger warnings you put), I feel you have some responsibility in how you portray it to readers. I’m blown away that she writes her exact weight, repeatedly emphasizes her thinness, and relishes the fact she gets carded at 35 years old. She also fails to come to any steps related to recovering disordered eating, yet it being one of the reasons she seeks help?
Throughout this book, Tendler is adamant about her distrust of men yet still craves their validation and requires their financial support to survive due to her lack of direction and quitting every job she has had. She recounts a time being hired for a Vogue men’s groomer with a demanding director, which could have been made out to be a learning experience to maybe: in the future, stand up for yourself as a creative or arrive incredibly overly prepared. To be honest, who hasn’t faced a situation like this, whether you are a barista being yelled at by a customer or navigating toxic office colleagues? Compared to the laundry list of her treatment from men, we get slivers of information about her growth as an artist. Even in the present, she admits she relies on her ex-husband for the majority of her income. Like many other reviews on here, I think that holding a steady, structured job for once in her life would have been genuinely a great learning experience for her, lol.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel where she de-centers men from her life. It is incredibly heartbreaking. If the patriarchy was still tying you down the way it’s portrayed here, no woman would have EVER succeeded! Yes, advocating for yourself to doctors is incredibly hard. I imagine it’s even harder without having the access for this extensive care.
Tendler finishes her story with dissecting and critiquing her team of doctor’s final notes during her mental hospital stay. It’s hard because I’m agreeing with their analysis. I genuinely believe that with more growth, accountability, & self-awareness that Anna Marie Tendler would have been able to give her story justice. I hope she can heal and that this diary entry of a memoir was cathartic for her. Lastly, could someone please show this woman the lesbian master doc?
I’m incredibly disappointed for a few reasons. I understand that recovery is a life-long process, but if you’re publishing a book (despite whatever trigger warnings you put), I feel you have some responsibility in how you portray it to readers. I’m blown away that she writes her exact weight, repeatedly emphasizes her thinness, and relishes the fact she gets carded at 35 years old. She also fails to come to any steps related to recovering disordered eating, yet it being one of the reasons she seeks help?
Throughout this book, Tendler is adamant about her distrust of men yet still craves their validation and requires their financial support to survive due to her lack of direction and quitting every job she has had. She recounts a time being hired for a Vogue men’s groomer with a demanding director, which could have been made out to be a learning experience to maybe: in the future, stand up for yourself as a creative or arrive incredibly overly prepared. To be honest, who hasn’t faced a situation like this, whether you are a barista being yelled at by a customer or navigating toxic office colleagues? Compared to the laundry list of her treatment from men, we get slivers of information about her growth as an artist. Even in the present, she admits she relies on her ex-husband for the majority of her income. Like many other reviews on here, I think that holding a steady, structured job for once in her life would have been genuinely a great learning experience for her, lol.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel where she de-centers men from her life. It is incredibly heartbreaking. If the patriarchy was still tying you down the way it’s portrayed here, no woman would have EVER succeeded! Yes, advocating for yourself to doctors is incredibly hard. I imagine it’s even harder without having the access for this extensive care.
Tendler finishes her story with dissecting and critiquing her team of doctor’s final notes during her mental hospital stay. It’s hard because I’m agreeing with their analysis. I genuinely believe that with more growth, accountability, & self-awareness that Anna Marie Tendler would have been able to give her story justice. I hope she can heal and that this diary entry of a memoir was cathartic for her. Lastly, could someone please show this woman the lesbian master doc?
June 18, 2024
I watched a ton of John Mulaney standup specials between 2015-2020, and I always thought his wife sounded unpleasant by the way he spoke about her. “Bossy little Jew.” Mean wife doesn’t want him to get a Best Buy rewards card. Girlfriend guilt trips him into proposing. Complains a lot. He made an entire career off poking fun at his wife and their very challenging dog, Petunia.
So when several years later, I finally saw the wife - the willowy, quiet mannered, gentle Anna Marie Tendler - on an episode of COMEDIANS IN CARS GETTING COFFEE - I asked myself how this could possibly be the same person John Mulaney mocked so unkindly in many of his specials. She didn’t come across at all the way he described her. She seemed like a mild mannered, kind soul experiencing a lot of pain and insecurity under the surface.
This book is where we get to know the Anna I knew existed beneath all his tired wife jokes.
Most people picking up this memoir are aware that John Mulaney spectacularly hurt Anna. He impregnated his girlfriend while still married to the woman who fueled so much of his material for years (women, if you count their dog Petunia! And I do!).
This memoir isn’t about John, though. He’s barely mentioned. And there is SUCH POWER in Anna’s move to give him so little air time in her pages. This is her story. She gets to call the shots. We hear about all the crappy men besides John Mulaney - all the men who hurt her before and after he did what he did.
This is such a valuable story about inappropriate therapist relationships as well - the abuse of power and condescension that unfortunately play out in therapist patient relationships. The fact that women as well as male therapists can do harm.
There’s so much maturity in the way Anna looks at her traumatic childhood. Anna is indeed a soft spoken person because she had a mother who flew into rages and screaming fits throughout Anna’s life. And yet Anna shows empathy and compassion for her mom, who gave up everything for her kids only to be thrown away by her husband. Anna has a lot of love for her family.
I related so much to Anna. She struggled finding a career and admits to being financed heavily by wealthy romantic partners. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s hard to feel directionless and insecure in one’s career. Anna was belittled by wealthier figures throughout her twenties - a diva director, a backstabbing acquaintance who said Anna didn’t deserve to date a wunderkind millionaire because Anna was only a hairdresser. I know what it’s like to feel insecure about career status well into one’s thirties. For me and Anna’s mom, motherhood did it. For Anna, it was most likely having a husband whose career sucked all the air out of the room.
I hope she got half in the divorce settlement, and I hope this book is a number one bestseller. I love that it’s not even really about the guy we all assumed it be about at all.
This is where the cool, smart, beautiful, thoughtful woman behind the hackneyed wife stand ups finally gets to show us who she is. I loved every word of this book.
So when several years later, I finally saw the wife - the willowy, quiet mannered, gentle Anna Marie Tendler - on an episode of COMEDIANS IN CARS GETTING COFFEE - I asked myself how this could possibly be the same person John Mulaney mocked so unkindly in many of his specials. She didn’t come across at all the way he described her. She seemed like a mild mannered, kind soul experiencing a lot of pain and insecurity under the surface.
This book is where we get to know the Anna I knew existed beneath all his tired wife jokes.
Most people picking up this memoir are aware that John Mulaney spectacularly hurt Anna. He impregnated his girlfriend while still married to the woman who fueled so much of his material for years (women, if you count their dog Petunia! And I do!).
This memoir isn’t about John, though. He’s barely mentioned. And there is SUCH POWER in Anna’s move to give him so little air time in her pages. This is her story. She gets to call the shots. We hear about all the crappy men besides John Mulaney - all the men who hurt her before and after he did what he did.
This is such a valuable story about inappropriate therapist relationships as well - the abuse of power and condescension that unfortunately play out in therapist patient relationships. The fact that women as well as male therapists can do harm.
There’s so much maturity in the way Anna looks at her traumatic childhood. Anna is indeed a soft spoken person because she had a mother who flew into rages and screaming fits throughout Anna’s life. And yet Anna shows empathy and compassion for her mom, who gave up everything for her kids only to be thrown away by her husband. Anna has a lot of love for her family.
I related so much to Anna. She struggled finding a career and admits to being financed heavily by wealthy romantic partners. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s hard to feel directionless and insecure in one’s career. Anna was belittled by wealthier figures throughout her twenties - a diva director, a backstabbing acquaintance who said Anna didn’t deserve to date a wunderkind millionaire because Anna was only a hairdresser. I know what it’s like to feel insecure about career status well into one’s thirties. For me and Anna’s mom, motherhood did it. For Anna, it was most likely having a husband whose career sucked all the air out of the room.
I hope she got half in the divorce settlement, and I hope this book is a number one bestseller. I love that it’s not even really about the guy we all assumed it be about at all.
This is where the cool, smart, beautiful, thoughtful woman behind the hackneyed wife stand ups finally gets to show us who she is. I loved every word of this book.
August 16, 2024
she thought she had written the next girl interrupted, reader…she did not
Read
September 7, 2024update I've read it. no further comments.
_____________
john mulaney welcome to your tape
_____________
john mulaney welcome to your tape
August 14, 2024
I’m not giving this book one star because she played into the hype of this book being some sort of John Mulaney hit piece, and then intentionally omits him from her timeline of all the men who have hurt her. The omission of her marriage and divorce (which in part triggered her hospital stay that’s the focus of this book) feels disingenuous. This book would simply not have been published if Anna did not have a public messy divorce with a famous comedian known for his standup about her. The sweeping statements she makes in this book about men are honestly shocking and I have a very high tolerance for man hating. For example, she details how she couldn’t understand why one of her boyfriends was so offended and confused when she said she would never want to have a son because she wouldn’t be able to watch him inevitably be an oppressor. She makes statements about how men are incapable of empathy and are ALL problematic. I felt that this book needed a better editor. I think it lacks a lot of self awareness and nuance. It felt half-baked and not ripe enough to publish at this stage of her life.
May 16, 2024
This book is a really beautifully written, well-done mental health memoir. I worry a bit about the marketing; this is not a John Mulaney exposé, and in fact he is not mentioned by name. The only tidbits a gossipy reader will get about their former marriage are brief mentions of Tendler's anxiety about financially depending on him and of attending Al-Anon meetings after his relapse. However, to the reader who is open to this story beyond its tabloid interest, there is a profoundly moving account of Tendler's recovery from self-harm in an inpatient mental health facility during the pandemic. The book alternates between the narrative at the recovery center, and "how did I get here" chapters in which she unpacks her early childhood and a string of harmful relationships with men. Tendler's mother seems like a complicated character-- sometimes loving and attentive, sometimes withholding and neurotic. I believe Tendler's account of dating older men as a "mature" teenager and chasing disinterested, avoidant types will be relatable for a lot of female readers, especially those with attachment trauma. I really admire her ability to analyze her own mental and emotional states, her refusal to cast anyone as a simple "hero" or "villain," and her readiness to broadcast her own flaws. The book also really shines in its moments of levity, in the connections that Tendler has with her New York friend group and her fellow women in inpatient. Overall, I think this is in the conversation for one of the best-written "celebrity memoirs" on a craft level; it's clear Tendler cares about each word and about telling the story effectively and honestly. She is vulnerable and raw and authentic and it's pretty damn inspiring. I am grateful to Simon & Schuster for the e-ARC; expected publication August 13.
August 14, 2024
a self indulgent diary entry of an unhealthy enneagram 4
i had hoped there would be a break or a blooming into meaningful self-reflection and transformation but unfortunately, she stands in her own way and is stuck in her own perception and narrative, never allowing room for accurate self awareness
i love her photography and believe her to be a talented artist
i had hoped there would be a break or a blooming into meaningful self-reflection and transformation but unfortunately, she stands in her own way and is stuck in her own perception and narrative, never allowing room for accurate self awareness
i love her photography and believe her to be a talented artist
August 16, 2024
I found it very hard to finish. It felt like an ED book written by a 15 year old who doesn’t have the maturity or self awareness to understand the gravity of her own behaviours. There comes a time in every woman’s life where she must decide to live for herself and not others; AMT has not mastered this at close to 40, I fear she probably never will.
August 21, 2024
I have never written a review on this app, but the contrarian in me saw the 4-star average rating (what??) and needed to weigh in.
I went into this book really wanting to like it. I liked what I knew about AMT. I hated John Mulaney. I love memoirs and generally ALL literature about women and madness. But what the fuck was this??
First of all, the ED stuff in this book was truly horrifying. AMT has in NO WAY recovered from her disorder, as evidenced by her continual need to glamorize and celebrate her thinness. Almost all of the accounts of sexual encounters include some description of a man admiring her gaunt body or grabbing her tiny wrists. She includes exact weights and specific descriptions of her highly “controlled” eating. This is not the voice of someone in recovery. It is the self-congratulatory voice of someone who still believes that starving herself is worth it. I think it is unconscionable that any editor read this and thought, “yeah, this seems fine!”
I was also truly astounded by the exclusionary brand of white feminism presented here. Early in the book, I clocked that AMT holds a LOT of privilege as a wealthy white woman who has never truly had to work a day in her life. That by no means invalidates her trauma, but it seems like she has her head in the sand. There was not a single nod to intersectionality. In fact, I don’t think there was a single mention of race or racism in this book. This is especially cringy considering that much of the book is a screed against medical mistreatment and gaslighting - an issue that DEEPLY impacts BIPOC women/people. She just seems so oblivious. I kid you not - at one point, she mentions that there are many types of oppression that she stands against, and then goes on to list “sexism, misogyny, and the patriarchy.” Couldn’t think of anything else, Anna?
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that this book seemed…unbelievable. I don’t mean shocking. I mean I literally do not believe many of her accounts. So many of the conversations and interactions she recounted left me thinking “no one has ever acted that way in the history of the world.” She leaves out so much context about her OWN actions and behavior that the responses of other people in her life seem truly strange and implausible. One notable example is when her therapist suddenly and publicly requests a “divorce” with Anna. Like…that didn’t come out of nowhere. Another provider diagnosed her with BPD, but she totally disregarded the diagnosis. Given this behavior and other concerning tendencies throughout the book, it would not surprise me if many of the people being “mean” to her throughout the book were simply pushed to their limit.
TLDR: this is the voice of a disturbingly unwell person who happens to have a great deal of financial privilege and therefore is able to publish a self-congratulatory ode to eating disorders and white feminism.
I went into this book really wanting to like it. I liked what I knew about AMT. I hated John Mulaney. I love memoirs and generally ALL literature about women and madness. But what the fuck was this??
First of all, the ED stuff in this book was truly horrifying. AMT has in NO WAY recovered from her disorder, as evidenced by her continual need to glamorize and celebrate her thinness. Almost all of the accounts of sexual encounters include some description of a man admiring her gaunt body or grabbing her tiny wrists. She includes exact weights and specific descriptions of her highly “controlled” eating. This is not the voice of someone in recovery. It is the self-congratulatory voice of someone who still believes that starving herself is worth it. I think it is unconscionable that any editor read this and thought, “yeah, this seems fine!”
I was also truly astounded by the exclusionary brand of white feminism presented here. Early in the book, I clocked that AMT holds a LOT of privilege as a wealthy white woman who has never truly had to work a day in her life. That by no means invalidates her trauma, but it seems like she has her head in the sand. There was not a single nod to intersectionality. In fact, I don’t think there was a single mention of race or racism in this book. This is especially cringy considering that much of the book is a screed against medical mistreatment and gaslighting - an issue that DEEPLY impacts BIPOC women/people. She just seems so oblivious. I kid you not - at one point, she mentions that there are many types of oppression that she stands against, and then goes on to list “sexism, misogyny, and the patriarchy.” Couldn’t think of anything else, Anna?
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that this book seemed…unbelievable. I don’t mean shocking. I mean I literally do not believe many of her accounts. So many of the conversations and interactions she recounted left me thinking “no one has ever acted that way in the history of the world.” She leaves out so much context about her OWN actions and behavior that the responses of other people in her life seem truly strange and implausible. One notable example is when her therapist suddenly and publicly requests a “divorce” with Anna. Like…that didn’t come out of nowhere. Another provider diagnosed her with BPD, but she totally disregarded the diagnosis. Given this behavior and other concerning tendencies throughout the book, it would not surprise me if many of the people being “mean” to her throughout the book were simply pushed to their limit.
TLDR: this is the voice of a disturbingly unwell person who happens to have a great deal of financial privilege and therefore is able to publish a self-congratulatory ode to eating disorders and white feminism.
August 20, 2024
Yeah it's time to go back to therapy, babe. What's actually "crazy" is that the only people who actually accused her of being "crazy" were women, and when she was finally diagnosed with borderline personality disorder it was easier for her to blame her male psychiatrist for the diagnosis strictly because he was a male instead of actually considering that her diagnosis may have some truth. I really don't think she's a reliable narrator, not because of her diagnosis, but this is some of the weirdest dialogue I've read, this is not how people talk??
It's easy to blame all your problems on the patriarchy, on men, on sexism, but what's really hard is acknowledging that although systems of oppression exist, you still have the autonomy to control your own future. AMT still has A LOT of work to do in terms of her eating disorder and her self injury behavior, it was barely addressed if at all, and if it was it was in a glorifying context (how tiny her wrists were, how she "looks so young for her age", how she was "so good" at hiding her self harm scars). She doesn't even really address how she uses healthy coping skills instead??
Look I know I'm not seeing the pearly gates anytime soon but girl... you CHOSE to surround yourself with garbage men and CHOSE to stay with them. For someone who "hates men", men sure seem to be the center of your universe. Don't make me root for the men here because I know they were dickheads but let's have some accountability. Like choosing not to work to solely rely on your partners financially and then cry about it?
Okay lastly the financial aspect of this. AMT seems to LOVE to pretend to be oppressed. Girl how the actual fuck did you afford a fancy residential treatment center for over a week (most insurance companies won't cover more than 2 days if that), IOP, IVF treatments, college, traveling, and the exorbitant costs of vet bills? You are NOT oppressed my girl. Patriarchy is real and is a bitch but you can't keep blaming men for your problems.
It's easy to blame all your problems on the patriarchy, on men, on sexism, but what's really hard is acknowledging that although systems of oppression exist, you still have the autonomy to control your own future. AMT still has A LOT of work to do in terms of her eating disorder and her self injury behavior, it was barely addressed if at all, and if it was it was in a glorifying context (how tiny her wrists were, how she "looks so young for her age", how she was "so good" at hiding her self harm scars). She doesn't even really address how she uses healthy coping skills instead??
Look I know I'm not seeing the pearly gates anytime soon but girl... you CHOSE to surround yourself with garbage men and CHOSE to stay with them. For someone who "hates men", men sure seem to be the center of your universe. Don't make me root for the men here because I know they were dickheads but let's have some accountability. Like choosing not to work to solely rely on your partners financially and then cry about it?
Okay lastly the financial aspect of this. AMT seems to LOVE to pretend to be oppressed. Girl how the actual fuck did you afford a fancy residential treatment center for over a week (most insurance companies won't cover more than 2 days if that), IOP, IVF treatments, college, traveling, and the exorbitant costs of vet bills? You are NOT oppressed my girl. Patriarchy is real and is a bitch but you can't keep blaming men for your problems.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 14, 2024
This is a book only for people who are acutely aware of who the author is and the media surrounding her ex husband and her divorce. Otherwise, it reads as a woman who is unfulfilled and lost but is also supported by men most of the time and takes her high school relationships way too seriously for the rest of her life. I was honestly hoping for more from this book, I was so excited to read it but found really nothing from it.
August 28, 2024
I will boldly say I don’t think she’s done the work
August 10, 2024
Torn between three and four stars.
On one hand: Tendler has crafted a spectacular memoir of mental illness, one that will live alongside Prozac Nation and Girl, Interrupted as deeply realized accounts of the societal treatment of mentally ill women.
On the other hand, the back half of the book sees the bottom fall out: in what, I'm sure, is meant to be a powerful act of omission, the book exists in a liminal space of elision. Tendler recounts bad experiences with two boyfriends and a decade vanishes: there is a very obvious lacuna haunting the text. The hatred of men extends beyond the 2020s memeification of gender essentialism and reveals something much darker lurking underneath, but even that becomes couched in the untouchable social justice language we're all deeply familiar with as denizens of the internet, common enough to become meaningless.
Is your life predetermined because of your gender? because of your bad parents? because of your astrology? I feel I'll have more to say on TikTok on the pub date, but tl;dr: this feels like half a book. It is well written and powerful and sad and *good*, but there is very clearly a point where the story ran out and we get filler for a hundred pages bc Tendler refuses to contend with a lot of her own internal stuff, which feels odd for a mental illness memoir.
It's honest to a fault- up to a point. It's truthful to a fault- up to a point. The extent to which that works will be up to you.
On one hand: Tendler has crafted a spectacular memoir of mental illness, one that will live alongside Prozac Nation and Girl, Interrupted as deeply realized accounts of the societal treatment of mentally ill women.
On the other hand, the back half of the book sees the bottom fall out: in what, I'm sure, is meant to be a powerful act of omission, the book exists in a liminal space of elision. Tendler recounts bad experiences with two boyfriends and a decade vanishes: there is a very obvious lacuna haunting the text. The hatred of men extends beyond the 2020s memeification of gender essentialism and reveals something much darker lurking underneath, but even that becomes couched in the untouchable social justice language we're all deeply familiar with as denizens of the internet, common enough to become meaningless.
Is your life predetermined because of your gender? because of your bad parents? because of your astrology? I feel I'll have more to say on TikTok on the pub date, but tl;dr: this feels like half a book. It is well written and powerful and sad and *good*, but there is very clearly a point where the story ran out and we get filler for a hundred pages bc Tendler refuses to contend with a lot of her own internal stuff, which feels odd for a mental illness memoir.
It's honest to a fault- up to a point. It's truthful to a fault- up to a point. The extent to which that works will be up to you.
August 14, 2024
While I respect that Anna has been through a LOT, this book read as a dogged diatribe against all men. I can see where this came from, but believe that further reflection on this feeling and how to resolve it into something less blindly vitriolic is necessary in order to make it the triumphant, empowered, “stronger” narrative that it is meant to be.
I felt that it was crippled by its insistence that misandry is not possible, instead presented as a natural response to the inevitable evil and callousness of men.
As a result, it ultimately reads as someone still very deeply hurting and unable, possibly, to fully confront their own agency in the choices that were made to engage with the relationships that helped inspire this distrust in men. This is not excusing their behavior, not at all, but I refuse to believe women never have a chance to act on their own, and that all bad relationships must be a result of men alone, as this removal of agency would be anti-feminist in itself.
While candid, the fact that she actively discounts the psychiatric and psychological evaluations of her medical professionals due to their being men, raises a red flag to me. I can’t help but look back over the narrative and feel that they hit on something she will not confront.
Her view of men appears to conclude triumphantly with her deciding that she hates them, but, in a quote from the book, “still wants to fuck them”. Um…. Uh. No comment.
And for that reason I can’t give it more than 2 stars.
Also fascinated by the choice to make fun of Christians for believing in a higher unseen power, but then also blithely narrate engaging in tarot, spirit healers and guides, and an animal translator to tell her what her dog is trying to communicate to her ….
I felt that it was crippled by its insistence that misandry is not possible, instead presented as a natural response to the inevitable evil and callousness of men.
As a result, it ultimately reads as someone still very deeply hurting and unable, possibly, to fully confront their own agency in the choices that were made to engage with the relationships that helped inspire this distrust in men. This is not excusing their behavior, not at all, but I refuse to believe women never have a chance to act on their own, and that all bad relationships must be a result of men alone, as this removal of agency would be anti-feminist in itself.
While candid, the fact that she actively discounts the psychiatric and psychological evaluations of her medical professionals due to their being men, raises a red flag to me. I can’t help but look back over the narrative and feel that they hit on something she will not confront.
Her view of men appears to conclude triumphantly with her deciding that she hates them, but, in a quote from the book, “still wants to fuck them”. Um…. Uh. No comment.
And for that reason I can’t give it more than 2 stars.
Also fascinated by the choice to make fun of Christians for believing in a higher unseen power, but then also blithely narrate engaging in tarot, spirit healers and guides, and an animal translator to tell her what her dog is trying to communicate to her ….
September 1, 2024
rtc but i thought this was fine?? not the best memoir i’ve ever read, not the worst. idk much about anna marie tendler but this outpouring of negativity online seems a bit hyperbolic for a mediocre book.
—————————
if a celeb memoir is causing a lot of online discourse, then i will be reading it
—————————
if a celeb memoir is causing a lot of online discourse, then i will be reading it
August 20, 2024
Some parts were really interesting and I felt her pain.
August 17, 2024
As someone who used to adore this woman, this memoir is so disappointing. I’m appalled anyone would rate this 4 or 5 stars. She comes off terribly immature and clearly shows signs of a personality disorder which she is very obviously not making any progress on. I feel bad for her, she clearly struggles mentally but it’s hard to empathize when Anna treats self harm and anorexia like a competition (which is gross). She constantly admits to being attention obsessed, noting in a potential suicide note how upset she was nobody complimented her at a party. I used to hate John Mulaney but now I honestly feel bad for him in a sense. I genuinely can’t believe anyone read this book and encouraged her to publish it. Anyway, maybe she should stop centering her life on men if she supposedly hates them and get a job instead of depending on men to financially support her.
Read
August 20, 2024I was rooting for u Anna Marie but man I just don't know about this. Like I know when her memoir was first announced a lot of people (myself included tbh) were like "oooh she is gonna roast John Mulaneyyyy" but a) she doesn't directly talk about him at all (fine, tasteful even), just a few references to "going through a divorce") and b) like...if anything before she wrote this I think my understanding was like "ohh JM got too famous and cheated on her with a more famous woman and abandoned his wonderful artist wife and their beloved dog, how could he?!" and now I'm like "man I kinda get it."
I didn't know too much about her as a person aside from hearing about her in Mulaney's comedy. Like here on GR the description of her book describes her as "popular artist Anna Marie Tendler" and I was like, oh, IS she a popular artist?? And I guess yeah she's a photographer but one of my main takeaways from this is that as much as she has endured bad treatment from men/the patriarchy/SOCIETY...also she has definitely financially benefitted from a series of wealthier boyfriends who supported her art/grad school/etc. Like it doesn't seem like she's ever had a true JOB. And not to channel my inner Puritan or whatever but like she's almost 40 and maybe like...get a job????? sorry babe
The title is so interesting and provocative because I mean it does sound like she has dealt with pretty serious mental illness for most of her life (which like yes could also be something preventing her from getting a job but that's not really a concept being explored in her book). Which it sounds like bad treatment from men has contributed to her state but not fully caused it? And she also specifically had maybe the worst experience with one of her female therapists so it's really not as simple as "men think she's a crazy bitch because she dares to have emotions!"
Like this is sort of a backdoor argument for better social safety nets in the US, I suppose. If we had UBI maybe she could just work on her lampshades and recovery without relying on her boyfriends/husbands' money. But mostly I felt like my sympathy and my feminism were being SORELY tested by this book. I wanted to root for her but I am kind of just like...get a job?????
I think perhaps a better book might have focused more on her time in the hospital and less time on her past boyfriends? Like I had wanted to read more about her because I was like "ok yeah it's not cool to just define her as JM's ex" but it sort of seems like she defines HERSELF as an ex. Which again is sort of you know the PATRIARCHY but if you're going to write a book about it maybe like, go a little deeper??
mostly I think this could have just been for her group chat.
It was a pretty quick read, though, so I did finish it.
I didn't know too much about her as a person aside from hearing about her in Mulaney's comedy. Like here on GR the description of her book describes her as "popular artist Anna Marie Tendler" and I was like, oh, IS she a popular artist?? And I guess yeah she's a photographer but one of my main takeaways from this is that as much as she has endured bad treatment from men/the patriarchy/SOCIETY...also she has definitely financially benefitted from a series of wealthier boyfriends who supported her art/grad school/etc. Like it doesn't seem like she's ever had a true JOB. And not to channel my inner Puritan or whatever but like she's almost 40 and maybe like...get a job????? sorry babe
The title is so interesting and provocative because I mean it does sound like she has dealt with pretty serious mental illness for most of her life (which like yes could also be something preventing her from getting a job but that's not really a concept being explored in her book). Which it sounds like bad treatment from men has contributed to her state but not fully caused it? And she also specifically had maybe the worst experience with one of her female therapists so it's really not as simple as "men think she's a crazy bitch because she dares to have emotions!"
Like this is sort of a backdoor argument for better social safety nets in the US, I suppose. If we had UBI maybe she could just work on her lampshades and recovery without relying on her boyfriends/husbands' money. But mostly I felt like my sympathy and my feminism were being SORELY tested by this book. I wanted to root for her but I am kind of just like...get a job?????
I think perhaps a better book might have focused more on her time in the hospital and less time on her past boyfriends? Like I had wanted to read more about her because I was like "ok yeah it's not cool to just define her as JM's ex" but it sort of seems like she defines HERSELF as an ex. Which again is sort of you know the PATRIARCHY but if you're going to write a book about it maybe like, go a little deeper??
mostly I think this could have just been for her group chat.
It was a pretty quick read, though, so I did finish it.
August 21, 2024
"I’m telling you that I have complicated feelings about men, and you are telling me it’s misandry.”
Well ... Yes.
The first time I heard the word "misandrist" was probably circa-2013 on my tumblr dashboard. Littered among gifs of galaxy prints and pastel goth edits of quotes from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's We Should All Be Feminists (someone who would later go on to be accused of TERF rhetoric, but we'll circle back on that), I found out that there was a word meant to be an inverse of misogyny. It was kind of used as a joke, the subtext being the understanding that it bore none of the systemic bite that misogyny had. None of the 18 year old girls with "misandrist" proudly displayed in their bio possessed any real power to influence the government, the workplace, the home. Most of them hadn't even earned a high school diploma. And yet they felt the bind of womanhood already - a set of expectations, of restrictions passed down from all of the women who had come before them. Women caged by the patriarchal structures that limited their ambition, confined them to the home and childrearing, that institutionalized them for acting out and wanting more than their husbands and fathers saw them fit to achieve. To put it lightly, women have historically had the short end of the stick. Our rage is perfectly valid, and you don't need to have experienced much of the world to feel the weight of history on your shoulders (just ask any of those teenage girls with an internet connection in the early 2010s).
However, at what point does this ambiguous rage rooted in structural oppression stop being useful? At what point does it stop serving us in the pursuit of knowledge, reform, and community and the wound begin to fester? Anne Marie Tendler answers that question quite simply - her self-righteous rage toward men has no purpose at all. It seeks no resolution; it encourages no connection to the women around her. It forcefully propels herself inward on an endless loop, the carousel of indignant rage falsely directed at her romantic partners as she seeks retribution for a lack of identity and self esteem that began and proliferated from within. In this memoir, AMT points the finger at every male figure in her life in place of confronting her own violent insecurity and never seems to scratch the root cause of her own self-imposed misery. It's an arduous schlep through the psyche of a 37 year old woman who moonlights as an artist but can't seem to find anything to hold her attention for more than a year or two, resigning her to survive on the bank accounts of the rich and famous men she attracts. And no, you don't even get to hear about the one she famously divorced, securing her this book deal in the first place.
The book is framed as a trip through Tendler's breakdown and admission to a psychiatric hospital in early 2021, and in all fairness, she was certainly in need of help. With a history of disordered eating, severe anxiety, depressive episodes, and self harm, she was a woman in crisis. At her facility, she meets four women whom she grows close with over the week. In a better version of this book, we spend more time getting to know them and their stories. Being around these women recovering from addiction and mental illness of their own certainly brings out the best in Tendler. They're arguably the only grounding forces in her life, as they force her outside her own head and disrupt her self-absorbed inner monologue for brief periods of time. When we are trapped in Tendler's head, it becomes very clear how much of a competition she wants to make her mental illness. Not only does she share her exact emaciated weight when she enters the facility, something that if you've ever stepped foot into disordered eating spaces you KNOW not to do, but she also makes a point to share that her marks of self harm were so severe, she managed to shock the unflappable nurse. Needless to say, I would not recommend sharing this book with anyone currently struggling with mental illness of their own. There is no discretion in the way she describes some of her self harming behaviors, which can be dangerous when shared with people currently in a crisis of their own.
The problem with the hospitalization framework, and arguably the memoir as a whole, is the John Mulaney-shaped hole in the book. As mentioned, Tendler never once overtly references her marriage to the comedian or his alleged infidelity that lead to their very public divorce over the pandemic. It could be argued, and is my personal opinion, that this was a deliberate choice to serve as a "fuck you" to the onlookers prying into a very personal, distressing time in her life. And to be clear, I agree that the invasion of privacy from the tabloids and self-proclaimed social media sleuths was both cruel and likely contributed to her declining mental state that landed her in an institution in the first place. However, to write this entire 300+ page memoir with the overarching structure of autopsying every man who has ever hurt you which eventually lead to your week-long stay in inpatient care WITHOUT mentioning the Husband Of It All? It's disingenuous at best and only draws more deliberate attention to the omission. Writing a memoir as an expression of empowerment after a painful relationship is a logical move to not only secure your own financial future after surviving off the income of a spouse for almost a decade, but also as a symbol of independence. So why then, taking all of this into consideration, does Tendler choose to frame her entire life story - in her own words - around the opinion of the men in her life?
Simply put, Tendler’s only tether in life is the validation of men. She craves male attention to a pathological point and resents them for both giving and taking it away. It has to be a difficult life to lead without an internal compass. She can’t hold down a job, her family offers her no support, and she feels increasingly alienated by her friends for choosing their own life paths. She is stuck frozen in stasis as every other person moves on around her, but it’s the men she blames for her strife. Not just her ex-husband, as she doesn’t mention him, but every man she has ever had a fleeting relationship with. To be almost 40 years old, ruminating about a boy kissing you as a teenager and never calling you back, reflects a deep emotional immaturity that makes fleeting teenage romance as important as an 8 year marriage. It’s outrageously foul for a man in his late 20s to be dating a 17 year old, but in Tendler’s own words, it was consensual at the time and he was away on tour for most of the year she “lived” with him in LA. In another draft of this book, maybe Tendler dissects these power imbalances with nuance - how your perceptions of equity shifts as you age, the concept of consent and how things you “consented to” as a child may not have been healthy choices in retrospect, how your priorities in a relationship change as you get older. Instead, because Tendler’s worldview hinges with borderline TERF-y gender essentialism in a death grip, all of these relationships are the same to her. She is a victim in every relationship she has ever had with a man and he is the aggressor on equal standing. To her, a relationship with a generous but stupid millionaire in her mid 20s is the same as a boy on the cross country team with whom a flame fizzled out. Her life is flattened into one plane of existence, Tendler Vs. The Patriarchy.
This worldview, framing men as the source of her pain while still using her desirability in their eyes as the litmus test for her worth as a human being, ultimately feels like an unreckoned-with form of self harm. She can quit cutting and starving herself, but how many mediocre men will she churn through before she’s able to be alone with her own thoughts at night? How long can you claim that “dating” is a form of healing because you’re only bedridden from heartbreak for two days instead of a week before you realize your lack of self worth is keeping you swiping, looking for the next man 8 years your junior who will tell you how young you look for your age, how slim you are, how fuckable he finds you? Who would you be if you never had sex again? Would you be able to live with yourself if no one thought you were pretty? Who are you in the dark when there’s nothing left but the sound of your own heart beating? Who are you? Tendler doesn’t know. She just knows that men have called her crazy, and she must exist in defiance of that. Unfortunately, creating a sense of identity that is only in opposition instead of in desire is a deeply vacuous way to live that will leave you searching for something to fill the hole it creates. Until Tendler is able to give up men as a whole for at least a period of time, it is my opinion that she will continue on this path of anger and resentment until it eats her alive. I think waiting on this memoir for another decade before she sat down to write may have been wise, at least to help give her life a better narrative. As it exists now, it’s empty and lifeless, maybe half a book at best.
There’s a distinct sense of omission with regards to analyzing her female relationships at all in this book, most of all the one she shares with her mother. Their relationship growing up, as described through various vignettes, is tenuous at best. Her mother is an adversarial figure in her life, someone with an explosive temper that gave up her own opportunities in the fashion industry to become a stay at home mom. Even as an adult when Tendler, after her mother has “become a different person” after an extended Yoga retreat in India, describes their interactions in a terse and standoffish way. There’s clearly a deep chasm between the two of them, Tendler’s implosive sadness the mirror to her mother’s explosive anger. I can empathize deeply with this situation, I’ve lived through it a thousand times over in my relationship with my own mother. But Tendler is highly defensive of her mother when any of the male physicians attempt to dig into her childhood. She completely shuts down any inclination that her mother could be less than a perfect caregiver, while her mom complains in the present about having to watch her dog Petunia while Tendler spends the week in inpatient care. Her psychologist directly indicates some form of repressed anger toward maternal figures in her discharge paperwork, and Tendler dismisses it entirely as the physician’s inclination toward the sarcastic refrain “let’s blame women”. After spending 300+ pages in her head, it seems like a sharp possibility that she is simply replicating the same freeze and fawn behaviors that got her through a difficult childhood far into adulthood, but this possibility conflicts with her worldview. Viewing everything through the lens of gender essentialism allows her own conflicted relationships with women to fly under the radar because she is so consumed with her anger toward men. It makes me question the quality of her care if she is approaching 40 and still unable to reckon with any shred of nuance in her worldview.
Where do we leave Tendler? Where does she go from here? I guess she’s into photography again and enjoying being “the highest-grossing artist in the history of the fair” she frequently works with. Whether that has anything to do with her own artistic merits or the fame she inadvertently acquired by being the subject of her ex-hubsand’s benign standup routine for the better part of the decade, we’ll never really know. The reality is that she is an amalgamation of all of these things, whether she likes it or not. I am, too. We all are created on our own terms and the terms of those who have loved us, some fleetingly, some painfully. This is a memoir written from the pain of someone fearing they’ll amount to nothing and being nothing more than the sum of the men who have hurt her. And as harsh as I’ve been throughout this review, I DO believe she can be more than that, if she chooses to put in the work. That’s a big “if”, she’s got a long way to go. And so I say from the kindest corner of my heart: Anna Marie Tendler, please go get a real fucking job.
Well ... Yes.
The first time I heard the word "misandrist" was probably circa-2013 on my tumblr dashboard. Littered among gifs of galaxy prints and pastel goth edits of quotes from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's We Should All Be Feminists (someone who would later go on to be accused of TERF rhetoric, but we'll circle back on that), I found out that there was a word meant to be an inverse of misogyny. It was kind of used as a joke, the subtext being the understanding that it bore none of the systemic bite that misogyny had. None of the 18 year old girls with "misandrist" proudly displayed in their bio possessed any real power to influence the government, the workplace, the home. Most of them hadn't even earned a high school diploma. And yet they felt the bind of womanhood already - a set of expectations, of restrictions passed down from all of the women who had come before them. Women caged by the patriarchal structures that limited their ambition, confined them to the home and childrearing, that institutionalized them for acting out and wanting more than their husbands and fathers saw them fit to achieve. To put it lightly, women have historically had the short end of the stick. Our rage is perfectly valid, and you don't need to have experienced much of the world to feel the weight of history on your shoulders (just ask any of those teenage girls with an internet connection in the early 2010s).
However, at what point does this ambiguous rage rooted in structural oppression stop being useful? At what point does it stop serving us in the pursuit of knowledge, reform, and community and the wound begin to fester? Anne Marie Tendler answers that question quite simply - her self-righteous rage toward men has no purpose at all. It seeks no resolution; it encourages no connection to the women around her. It forcefully propels herself inward on an endless loop, the carousel of indignant rage falsely directed at her romantic partners as she seeks retribution for a lack of identity and self esteem that began and proliferated from within. In this memoir, AMT points the finger at every male figure in her life in place of confronting her own violent insecurity and never seems to scratch the root cause of her own self-imposed misery. It's an arduous schlep through the psyche of a 37 year old woman who moonlights as an artist but can't seem to find anything to hold her attention for more than a year or two, resigning her to survive on the bank accounts of the rich and famous men she attracts. And no, you don't even get to hear about the one she famously divorced, securing her this book deal in the first place.
The book is framed as a trip through Tendler's breakdown and admission to a psychiatric hospital in early 2021, and in all fairness, she was certainly in need of help. With a history of disordered eating, severe anxiety, depressive episodes, and self harm, she was a woman in crisis. At her facility, she meets four women whom she grows close with over the week. In a better version of this book, we spend more time getting to know them and their stories. Being around these women recovering from addiction and mental illness of their own certainly brings out the best in Tendler. They're arguably the only grounding forces in her life, as they force her outside her own head and disrupt her self-absorbed inner monologue for brief periods of time. When we are trapped in Tendler's head, it becomes very clear how much of a competition she wants to make her mental illness. Not only does she share her exact emaciated weight when she enters the facility, something that if you've ever stepped foot into disordered eating spaces you KNOW not to do, but she also makes a point to share that her marks of self harm were so severe, she managed to shock the unflappable nurse. Needless to say, I would not recommend sharing this book with anyone currently struggling with mental illness of their own. There is no discretion in the way she describes some of her self harming behaviors, which can be dangerous when shared with people currently in a crisis of their own.
The problem with the hospitalization framework, and arguably the memoir as a whole, is the John Mulaney-shaped hole in the book. As mentioned, Tendler never once overtly references her marriage to the comedian or his alleged infidelity that lead to their very public divorce over the pandemic. It could be argued, and is my personal opinion, that this was a deliberate choice to serve as a "fuck you" to the onlookers prying into a very personal, distressing time in her life. And to be clear, I agree that the invasion of privacy from the tabloids and self-proclaimed social media sleuths was both cruel and likely contributed to her declining mental state that landed her in an institution in the first place. However, to write this entire 300+ page memoir with the overarching structure of autopsying every man who has ever hurt you which eventually lead to your week-long stay in inpatient care WITHOUT mentioning the Husband Of It All? It's disingenuous at best and only draws more deliberate attention to the omission. Writing a memoir as an expression of empowerment after a painful relationship is a logical move to not only secure your own financial future after surviving off the income of a spouse for almost a decade, but also as a symbol of independence. So why then, taking all of this into consideration, does Tendler choose to frame her entire life story - in her own words - around the opinion of the men in her life?
Simply put, Tendler’s only tether in life is the validation of men. She craves male attention to a pathological point and resents them for both giving and taking it away. It has to be a difficult life to lead without an internal compass. She can’t hold down a job, her family offers her no support, and she feels increasingly alienated by her friends for choosing their own life paths. She is stuck frozen in stasis as every other person moves on around her, but it’s the men she blames for her strife. Not just her ex-husband, as she doesn’t mention him, but every man she has ever had a fleeting relationship with. To be almost 40 years old, ruminating about a boy kissing you as a teenager and never calling you back, reflects a deep emotional immaturity that makes fleeting teenage romance as important as an 8 year marriage. It’s outrageously foul for a man in his late 20s to be dating a 17 year old, but in Tendler’s own words, it was consensual at the time and he was away on tour for most of the year she “lived” with him in LA. In another draft of this book, maybe Tendler dissects these power imbalances with nuance - how your perceptions of equity shifts as you age, the concept of consent and how things you “consented to” as a child may not have been healthy choices in retrospect, how your priorities in a relationship change as you get older. Instead, because Tendler’s worldview hinges with borderline TERF-y gender essentialism in a death grip, all of these relationships are the same to her. She is a victim in every relationship she has ever had with a man and he is the aggressor on equal standing. To her, a relationship with a generous but stupid millionaire in her mid 20s is the same as a boy on the cross country team with whom a flame fizzled out. Her life is flattened into one plane of existence, Tendler Vs. The Patriarchy.
This worldview, framing men as the source of her pain while still using her desirability in their eyes as the litmus test for her worth as a human being, ultimately feels like an unreckoned-with form of self harm. She can quit cutting and starving herself, but how many mediocre men will she churn through before she’s able to be alone with her own thoughts at night? How long can you claim that “dating” is a form of healing because you’re only bedridden from heartbreak for two days instead of a week before you realize your lack of self worth is keeping you swiping, looking for the next man 8 years your junior who will tell you how young you look for your age, how slim you are, how fuckable he finds you? Who would you be if you never had sex again? Would you be able to live with yourself if no one thought you were pretty? Who are you in the dark when there’s nothing left but the sound of your own heart beating? Who are you? Tendler doesn’t know. She just knows that men have called her crazy, and she must exist in defiance of that. Unfortunately, creating a sense of identity that is only in opposition instead of in desire is a deeply vacuous way to live that will leave you searching for something to fill the hole it creates. Until Tendler is able to give up men as a whole for at least a period of time, it is my opinion that she will continue on this path of anger and resentment until it eats her alive. I think waiting on this memoir for another decade before she sat down to write may have been wise, at least to help give her life a better narrative. As it exists now, it’s empty and lifeless, maybe half a book at best.
There’s a distinct sense of omission with regards to analyzing her female relationships at all in this book, most of all the one she shares with her mother. Their relationship growing up, as described through various vignettes, is tenuous at best. Her mother is an adversarial figure in her life, someone with an explosive temper that gave up her own opportunities in the fashion industry to become a stay at home mom. Even as an adult when Tendler, after her mother has “become a different person” after an extended Yoga retreat in India, describes their interactions in a terse and standoffish way. There’s clearly a deep chasm between the two of them, Tendler’s implosive sadness the mirror to her mother’s explosive anger. I can empathize deeply with this situation, I’ve lived through it a thousand times over in my relationship with my own mother. But Tendler is highly defensive of her mother when any of the male physicians attempt to dig into her childhood. She completely shuts down any inclination that her mother could be less than a perfect caregiver, while her mom complains in the present about having to watch her dog Petunia while Tendler spends the week in inpatient care. Her psychologist directly indicates some form of repressed anger toward maternal figures in her discharge paperwork, and Tendler dismisses it entirely as the physician’s inclination toward the sarcastic refrain “let’s blame women”. After spending 300+ pages in her head, it seems like a sharp possibility that she is simply replicating the same freeze and fawn behaviors that got her through a difficult childhood far into adulthood, but this possibility conflicts with her worldview. Viewing everything through the lens of gender essentialism allows her own conflicted relationships with women to fly under the radar because she is so consumed with her anger toward men. It makes me question the quality of her care if she is approaching 40 and still unable to reckon with any shred of nuance in her worldview.
Where do we leave Tendler? Where does she go from here? I guess she’s into photography again and enjoying being “the highest-grossing artist in the history of the fair” she frequently works with. Whether that has anything to do with her own artistic merits or the fame she inadvertently acquired by being the subject of her ex-hubsand’s benign standup routine for the better part of the decade, we’ll never really know. The reality is that she is an amalgamation of all of these things, whether she likes it or not. I am, too. We all are created on our own terms and the terms of those who have loved us, some fleetingly, some painfully. This is a memoir written from the pain of someone fearing they’ll amount to nothing and being nothing more than the sum of the men who have hurt her. And as harsh as I’ve been throughout this review, I DO believe she can be more than that, if she chooses to put in the work. That’s a big “if”, she’s got a long way to go. And so I say from the kindest corner of my heart: Anna Marie Tendler, please go get a real fucking job.
Read
August 16, 2024Reading this memoir made me realize that I have perhaps never had an understanding of who Anna is, removed from her very famous ex-husband.
While I think that many will go into the memoir hoping for some sort of tell-all about the extremely public divorce, this is an entirely different experience. Though it is obvious the divorce played a part in the pain which ultimately led to Anna spending time at a psych unit (which is where this book begins) he is both present in the story, and yet brilliantly removed.
I found this to be a vulnerable insight into the life of an artist who has undoubtedly earned her own spotlight. Messy, human, with an ending that brought tears to my eyes. I wish Anna nothing but the most gorgeous life.
While I think that many will go into the memoir hoping for some sort of tell-all about the extremely public divorce, this is an entirely different experience. Though it is obvious the divorce played a part in the pain which ultimately led to Anna spending time at a psych unit (which is where this book begins) he is both present in the story, and yet brilliantly removed.
I found this to be a vulnerable insight into the life of an artist who has undoubtedly earned her own spotlight. Messy, human, with an ending that brought tears to my eyes. I wish Anna nothing but the most gorgeous life.
August 15, 2024
Overall, disappointing.
The book details quite a few accounts of childhood trauma and yet the author insists that men are the cause of her rage/grief. Yes, the shitty exes have treated her poorly but those examples pale in comparison to walking on eggshells for her emotionally volatile mother and being dismissed by her dad who ironically was a school psychologist.
The doctors at the hospital point out the childhood (strain) trauma and while she acknowledges it, she never quite makes the connection between the abuse she's suffered and how it has led her to seek unfulfilling relationships with disinterested men as well as having a difficult time finding a sustainable career. Instead, she kind of doubles down on saying she hates men over and over when she's still managing her mom's emotions while in the psychiatric hospital and when Petunia is sick. It's kind of sad that she hasn't gotten the therapeutic help she needs and is continuously focusing on fixing the symptoms (bad relationships) instead of the root of her rage/grief which is actually her own parents.
The book details quite a few accounts of childhood trauma and yet the author insists that men are the cause of her rage/grief. Yes, the shitty exes have treated her poorly but those examples pale in comparison to walking on eggshells for her emotionally volatile mother and being dismissed by her dad who ironically was a school psychologist.
The doctors at the hospital point out the childhood (strain) trauma and while she acknowledges it, she never quite makes the connection between the abuse she's suffered and how it has led her to seek unfulfilling relationships with disinterested men as well as having a difficult time finding a sustainable career. Instead, she kind of doubles down on saying she hates men over and over when she's still managing her mom's emotions while in the psychiatric hospital and when Petunia is sick. It's kind of sad that she hasn't gotten the therapeutic help she needs and is continuously focusing on fixing the symptoms (bad relationships) instead of the root of her rage/grief which is actually her own parents.
August 11, 2024
*2.5 stars, rounded down.
For the first quarter of “Men Have Called Her Crazy,” I was engrossed. Anna Marie Tendler’s writing was smooth and evocative, and her reflections about her mental health were so honest that it almost felt like I was reading about a close friend. We follow as she enters a psychiatric hospital amidst the Covid pandemic, experiencing suicidal thoughts, self-harm and an eating disorder. Tendler recounts each day at the facility down to the most minute details, which are both fascinating and truly sobering to read about. Slowly but surely, an overt underlying thread of Tendler’s resentment toward men begins to emerge. Through alternating chapters, she switches from recalling her experiences with men – almost all of them negative – to her time at the hospital.
Through these episodes I found myself in an uncomfortable struggle. As the page count increased and my initial feelings subsided – and particularly as we moved further away from her time at the psychiatric hospital and more toward Tendler’s reflections on men – I started to become somewhat numb. Was I still reading because I was truly getting something from the experience, or was it because of some kind of ugly nosiness, an inability to resist finding out what happened to a real human being who had reached crisis point, compounded by her simmering fury toward men?
Tendler occasionally glosses over events that seem like they should have been incredibly significant, and lingers on areas that are perhaps less relevant. She mentions falling in love with a friend in a single sentence, and skips over her marriage to the comedian John Mulaney, and their subsequent divorce, entirely. Her dog, Petunia, however, is devoted entire chapters. This is a memoir, and therefore those choices are one hundred percent personal – they just didn’t quite work for me.
I really wish I could say I found the book powerful, but being totally honest I simply wasn’t feeling much, I was just absorbing it. It didn’t seem right, especially as I could clearly acknowledge the anguish that Tendler was going through. Past a certain point in the book, my continuing to read it felt almost gossipy.
Some reflections about her hatred of men felt thin, sweeping and unfocused; speaking entirely personally, they sometimes made me uncomfortable. However, I can also acknowledge that it is both wrong and impossible to lay down any sort of real judgment when it comes to reviewing a memoir – these are her experiences, and she owns them entirely.
Tendler’s story is at times very moving and certainly relatable. At my favourite moments in the book, I felt I was getting a unique insight into the U.S. mental health system as well as an admirably vulnerable, highly readable memoir. Whilst her outlook ultimately didn’t resonate with me, I do think many women will feel a deep pull to her story.
Many, many thanks to Bonnier Books for the review copy.
For the first quarter of “Men Have Called Her Crazy,” I was engrossed. Anna Marie Tendler’s writing was smooth and evocative, and her reflections about her mental health were so honest that it almost felt like I was reading about a close friend. We follow as she enters a psychiatric hospital amidst the Covid pandemic, experiencing suicidal thoughts, self-harm and an eating disorder. Tendler recounts each day at the facility down to the most minute details, which are both fascinating and truly sobering to read about. Slowly but surely, an overt underlying thread of Tendler’s resentment toward men begins to emerge. Through alternating chapters, she switches from recalling her experiences with men – almost all of them negative – to her time at the hospital.
Through these episodes I found myself in an uncomfortable struggle. As the page count increased and my initial feelings subsided – and particularly as we moved further away from her time at the psychiatric hospital and more toward Tendler’s reflections on men – I started to become somewhat numb. Was I still reading because I was truly getting something from the experience, or was it because of some kind of ugly nosiness, an inability to resist finding out what happened to a real human being who had reached crisis point, compounded by her simmering fury toward men?
Tendler occasionally glosses over events that seem like they should have been incredibly significant, and lingers on areas that are perhaps less relevant. She mentions falling in love with a friend in a single sentence, and skips over her marriage to the comedian John Mulaney, and their subsequent divorce, entirely. Her dog, Petunia, however, is devoted entire chapters. This is a memoir, and therefore those choices are one hundred percent personal – they just didn’t quite work for me.
I really wish I could say I found the book powerful, but being totally honest I simply wasn’t feeling much, I was just absorbing it. It didn’t seem right, especially as I could clearly acknowledge the anguish that Tendler was going through. Past a certain point in the book, my continuing to read it felt almost gossipy.
Some reflections about her hatred of men felt thin, sweeping and unfocused; speaking entirely personally, they sometimes made me uncomfortable. However, I can also acknowledge that it is both wrong and impossible to lay down any sort of real judgment when it comes to reviewing a memoir – these are her experiences, and she owns them entirely.
Tendler’s story is at times very moving and certainly relatable. At my favourite moments in the book, I felt I was getting a unique insight into the U.S. mental health system as well as an admirably vulnerable, highly readable memoir. Whilst her outlook ultimately didn’t resonate with me, I do think many women will feel a deep pull to her story.
Many, many thanks to Bonnier Books for the review copy.
May 2, 2025
I was ready for Men Have Called Her Crazy to hit me with some raw, unfiltered truth. Instead, it reads like watching someone locked in a staring contest with their own reflection, deeply fascinated by… well, themselves .
The whole vibe? It gives I’m flipping through someone’s diary after it’s been redacted by an NDA. And honestly, if my husband built a career on “I don’t want kids” and then had a baby with someone else while we were still married, I’d be losing it too. And he’s 🥴JOHN MULANEY???🤕A man whose entire vibe is awkward middle school drama teacher with a God complex??? A man so devoid of personality his entire personality was her? A man who looks like he googled “How to be funny” and then built a career off it? Being publicly humiliated by someone that aggressively mid would spiritually bankrupt me. I get it girl.
Here’s the thing though, this book doesn’t give what it needs to give. Your high school boyfriend did not ruin you to this level. The obsessive weight talk, the graphic self-harm, the endless spiral of “why me”, it’s heavy, but without any real reflection, it’s exhausting. She’s stuck telling us everything except the thing we all know is at the center of it. It’s like watching someone cry on the floor in a Trisha Paytas kitchen vlog, but without the storytime.
This book makes Cat Marnell sound self-reflective by comparison. It’s just men living rent-free in every sentence while she insists it’s not about them. It’s giving 2013 Tumblr sad girl energy but with the budget for a hardcover. I wish this had been a photography book because her photos? Incredible. But this book was exhausting.
The whole vibe? It gives I’m flipping through someone’s diary after it’s been redacted by an NDA. And honestly, if my husband built a career on “I don’t want kids” and then had a baby with someone else while we were still married, I’d be losing it too. And he’s 🥴JOHN MULANEY???🤕A man whose entire vibe is awkward middle school drama teacher with a God complex??? A man so devoid of personality his entire personality was her? A man who looks like he googled “How to be funny” and then built a career off it? Being publicly humiliated by someone that aggressively mid would spiritually bankrupt me. I get it girl.
Here’s the thing though, this book doesn’t give what it needs to give. Your high school boyfriend did not ruin you to this level. The obsessive weight talk, the graphic self-harm, the endless spiral of “why me”, it’s heavy, but without any real reflection, it’s exhausting. She’s stuck telling us everything except the thing we all know is at the center of it. It’s like watching someone cry on the floor in a Trisha Paytas kitchen vlog, but without the storytime.
This book makes Cat Marnell sound self-reflective by comparison. It’s just men living rent-free in every sentence while she insists it’s not about them. It’s giving 2013 Tumblr sad girl energy but with the budget for a hardcover. I wish this had been a photography book because her photos? Incredible. But this book was exhausting.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,341 reviews