Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

6 reviews

grunbean's review against another edition

adventurous informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

I don’t read non-fiction, this was an exception for a book club. After reading this, I definitely want to try reading more memoirs!

I feel it is important to read this as a memoir as opposed to an essay. While there is analysis and plenty of examples referred to, this reads as a reflection of the author’s own experience with engaging with art created by bad people. Not all the artists are talked about at the same length, and you’ll find that there’s a lot of kinds of monster in here. 

I did find some of the examples of female artists confusing. They don’t generally equate to the literal crimes written about for male artists. It does add some balance, though, if this is in here for balance it may have been interesting to explore queer examples too.

I really enjoyed this, and I liked the conclusion it came too. It definitely encouraged me to think more about the parasocial relationships with artists, and how we can reconcile this when they’re revealed to be bad people. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Rape

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide, and Alcohol

aburns2's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

seeingplaid's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

3.5

Author puts a lot of her own experience in a book about famous artists who are monsters and has a few moments of pretentiousness I was not wild about. But this is an interesting meditation on how fans interact with media and art when the artist who makes those works has done something so outside our values it affects our relationship to the art. Feminism is an important lense the author uses.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Drug use, Pedophilia, Rape, and Suicide

jainabee's review against another edition

challenging dark funny informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

I am so glad this book exists because I NEEDED it. It needed to exist in the world. The question of how to balance fandom of my favorite works of creativity with the toxic and destructive behaviors of the creators is an issue that torments me. Dederer directly addresses some of my own pet monsters; Woody Allen, David Bowie, JK Rowling, Miles Davis. This book makes me think a LOT. This book is very uncomfortable in a vitally important way. This book challenges me in ways I needed. The chapter comparing and contrasting Valerie Solanas and Sylvia Plath (!!!!!) flipped my wig with the brilliance of unexpected insights about how women respond to the violence of misogyny. The chapter about Lolita is a sparkling gem of brilliant insight and analysis that might be the best review of it I've ever read (spoiler alert: Nabokov is not a monster, though he is a genius). This book is FULL of triggering content, as it describes the crimes of the creators. No way around that. The point of the book seems to be to face the monsters directly and feel the extremely uncomfortable dilemma between loving something, even the monster, "even after everything." I got a lot to think about here.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Antisemitism, Medical content, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cursing, Drug abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Racism, Xenophobia, Grief, Murder, War, and Classism

Minor: Drug use, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Dysphoria

I need to read this book again. And probably again.

probablyshannon's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexism, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Alcohol

ktdakotareads's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment