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A review by hyattsarah
The Narcissist Next Door: Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed--in Your World by Jeffrey Kluger
Did not finish book.
If you want to understand narcissism, this is a terrible book. I would venture so far as to say this may be a dangerous book. This is the book equivalent of an essay written by a student during an all nighter at the end of finals week.
In the interest of full disclosure, I read one chapter and had to put it down. I skimmed the others. I am also not qualified to diagnose anyone - though Kluger does, repeatedly, and he relies on celebrities. He settles for the shallow, often wrong, assumption that narcissism = self-centeredness. He indulges this definition with examples like Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, and people who take selfies for the internet. It's a tired trope and a very inaccurate one. Anyone who has done minimal reading on NPD, and/or anyone who has known a narcissist, likely knows how poor of a description this is. And for those who embrace it, this book provides little insight into who in their lives may be a narcissist.
Narcissistic personality disorder is exactly that - a mental disorder, not simply someone who is arrogant or in the spotlight. That is the equivalent of someone claiming they are "so OCD!" because they keep a clean house. They are not the same. There may be overlap, but an individual who prefers a clean house, even very adamantly, does not necessarily have a full blown DISORDER anymore than an attention-seeking celebrity. Narcissism as a disorder has more in common with antisocial personality disorder than it does with arrogance (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/inside-the-criminal-mind/201107/narcissistic-personality-disorder-and-the-antisocial). An arrogant person may be annoying and off-putting; a narcissist will charm, manipulate, lie, abuse and often destroy others.
This book honestly does a disservice to those who suspect that someone in their lives may be a narcissist. Readers would do better to pick up Gavin de Becker's "Gift of Fear" and focus on trusting their own intuition rather than pointing fingers at Miley Cyrus' latest bad decisions.
In the interest of full disclosure, I read one chapter and had to put it down. I skimmed the others. I am also not qualified to diagnose anyone - though Kluger does, repeatedly, and he relies on celebrities. He settles for the shallow, often wrong, assumption that narcissism = self-centeredness. He indulges this definition with examples like Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, and people who take selfies for the internet. It's a tired trope and a very inaccurate one. Anyone who has done minimal reading on NPD, and/or anyone who has known a narcissist, likely knows how poor of a description this is. And for those who embrace it, this book provides little insight into who in their lives may be a narcissist.
Narcissistic personality disorder is exactly that - a mental disorder, not simply someone who is arrogant or in the spotlight. That is the equivalent of someone claiming they are "so OCD!" because they keep a clean house. They are not the same. There may be overlap, but an individual who prefers a clean house, even very adamantly, does not necessarily have a full blown DISORDER anymore than an attention-seeking celebrity. Narcissism as a disorder has more in common with antisocial personality disorder than it does with arrogance (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/inside-the-criminal-mind/201107/narcissistic-personality-disorder-and-the-antisocial). An arrogant person may be annoying and off-putting; a narcissist will charm, manipulate, lie, abuse and often destroy others.
This book honestly does a disservice to those who suspect that someone in their lives may be a narcissist. Readers would do better to pick up Gavin de Becker's "Gift of Fear" and focus on trusting their own intuition rather than pointing fingers at Miley Cyrus' latest bad decisions.