Funny, relatable and a warm hug all once. I loved this book. As a homemaker who devotes her time to her family and children, but also spends much of her free time enjoying fan fiction and fan culture, I felt seen. I feel I found my people!

“Our own obsessions are exquisite; they’re the gleaming circles that encompass, perfectly, our innermost thoughts and desires. But when we turn our insides out to display them to the world, expose these precious, private parts of ourselves to the light, all anyone else sees is a toilet bowl full of poo coins.”

“This is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch…” is a mix of Tabitha Carvan’s anecdotes about her personal obsession with Benedict Cumberbatch, other fans’ stories, and some research tidbits about fandom.

Unfortunately, it fell flat to me. I will preface this by saying that I recently read another upcoming book about fandom and might be a bit burnt out on the subject or just too familiar with it since I grew up in this culture of celebrity obsession and fan fiction being normal. Carvan’s book seemed kind of jumbled and dry in parts. At times, I felt that she wrote this book to try and justify this obsession to herself. Most of the other fans she spoke to also wanted to be anonymous.

I did appreciate the context that it was okay to find joy in something inane, especially as a mother. I hope that the press that comes with this book will help other women realize that their parasocial relations with celebrities are perfectly fine and that we should all be finding joy wherever we can.

Overall, this will probably intrigue other Benedict Cumberbatch fans and people who are not familiar with fandom but to me, it was just something I already knew.

Thank you to G.P. Putnam’s Sons and Netgalley for providing this advanced copy for an honest review.

This is a fascinating book on so many levels! The author, after becoming a mother to two small children, suddenly realizes that she is madly in love with the British actor Benedict Cumberbatch. She spends all her free time looking at photos of him, watching his TV and film appearances over and over, googling news stories about him, etc. Eventually, she discovered that there are entire communities of "Cumberbitches" (as his rabid fans call themselves) all over the Internet. She also discovers "fanfic" sites, where people write their own fictional accounts of the actor, or the characters he plays. She decorates her spare bedroom and desk at work with photos of him. While she is both proud and mortified by her obsession, she begins to wonder about it -- why? why now? why me? In doing her research to try to figure it out, she talks with many who share her obsession, as well as a variety of scientists, academics and authors who have studied various aspects of the situation. The author remembers being similarly infatuated as a young woman with various interests, until, one day, it seemed that she was being discouraged from having these obsessions. Men, she notes, are given approval to be obsessed with interests -- whether it's golf or a sports team. It's not unseemly at all. Women, on the other hand, are expected by society to put aside their own interests and concentrate on things that are proper, productive, and above all, seemly. The author, aware of this, even points out her own biases -- her son is indulged in his love of cars and trains, but her daughter, who loves all things pink and sparkly, has undoubtedly been brainwashed into liking these "girly" (and therefore, less important) things. The message of the book is to embrace, unashamedly and with your whole heart, whatever makes you happy and gives you fulfillment. Most of the fellow Benedict-lovers she speaks to have allowed their joy in all things Cumberbatch to spill over to other areas of their lives. Once they give themselves permission to love something fully and without reservations, whole worlds of possibilities open up to them. And that's all anyone can ask out of life.

I’m a fan of Tom Hiddleston. I think he’s handsome, has nice eyes, and is a great actor. I’ll freely admit that I’ve watched a couple of movies for no reason other than that he was in them (I’m looking at you, cinematic disaster I frequently fast-forwarded through known as Kong: Skull Island). I also find his voice calming, and on some sleepless, anxiety-riddled nights in 2020 I listened to Tom Hiddleston’s narration of a couple of short stories by Ian Fleming that I owned but had been unable to get through (the only time James Bond almost killed someone with boredom). Not only did I finally finish those stories that way, but his calming voice combined with something terribly dull eased my panic attacks just enough for me to get a little bit of sleep. To top it all off, he seems like he’s probably a genuinely nice guy.

Notice my above use of the words “seems” and “probably”. I recognize that not only is this man an actor, but he’s simply a person I don’t actually know, so I don’t presume to have any real knowledge of what this man is really like. For these reasons, I’d also never go so far as to say I’m “in love” with some man I don’t actually know and have never met. I’m not sure I can even fully grasp such a concept because it seems so, well, unbalanced.

This was my issue with this book.

I was excited to read this book. The title caught my eye, and what I’d heard about it made it sound like it was about embracing what you’re a fan of and not being ashamed to own up to it. This appealed to me because I am what some people consider to be a nerd about certain things, such as Doctor Who for instance, but sometimes worry about people judging me for my interests. Having said that, this occasional worry does not take over my life. For example, many times I’ve not only worn my 50th anniversary edition Doctor Who t-shirt out and about, but have received compliments on it. On one occasion it even led to a debate with a total stranger on who our favorite Doctor was.

However, being part of a fandom, or even having a celebrity crush, has never taken over my life. I wouldn’t describe these things as always being on my mind or being the biggest source of fulfillment in my life. I am, frankly, too busy with my life for those things to be my life, which is why I found This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch concerning. The author doesn’t just sound like a fan, she sounds obsessed. She’s studied him so closely that she can not only tell you which episode of Sherlock you’re watching just by his hair, but she described herself talking with another woman about Benedict Cumberbatch as making her feel more complete and more whole than she has in years, more than being a mother does. She later mentions something about motherhood ruining her life, and while she later admits that her identity crisis started well before she had children I kept thinking how her children might feel if they ever read these things.

More than wondering how this obsession makes those around her feel, I found myself completely puzzled by a number of remarks in this book. For instance, it’s expressed that society in general seems to think that women’s feelings hold the most value when they’re unseen and unexpressed, or that women are expected to only take part in productive leisure activities such as knitting and that it’s considered odd if a woman does something that serves no purpose other than that she thinks it’s fun. These expressions threw me for a loop. I found myself thinking: “Have I been living under a rock?” I’d never heard of such expectations, in my general community or elsewhere. So I started asking around—family, friends, anyone that gave me an opportunity to ask. Each person I asked about these things gave me the same answer: “…What??” No one I asked had experienced or even heard of these things, which further made me feel like the things said in this book should be taken with a grain of salt.

To top it all off, I found the writing style to be rambling. It was not uncommon for me to have to flip back to the chapter title because I was so bogged down in what felt like unnecessary digressions that I’d forgotten what the actual point of the chapter was supposed to be. There was also a point where the author describes how many people ask her what her husband thinks about her Benedict Cumberbatch obsession. She goes on to describe how motherhood had changed her and she and her husband now had not only different schedules but seemingly different outlooks on life, which she was struggling with. She then seems to rather defensively ask the reader why you don’t ask about that. I personally found that rather insulting. It seems to insinuate I’m narrow-minded enough to only wonder what her husband thinks about her obsession, when in fact I had plenty of questions! Yes, I wondered what her husband thinks, but I also wondered: Does the world at large really think these things about women and I just didn’t know it? Is it just a thing in Australia? Is it actually just this woman and her acquaintances, a sort of a birds of a feather flocking together situation? How will her kids be affected by what she says about motherhood? Could this all have been triggered by depression? Could this woman have some form of OCD? Is she ok? Does she need to talk to a therapist? On and on, so many questions that I was not only insulted by what seemed to me to be presumptuousness in this book but also had a headache from trying to figure all this out.

So there you have it. I wanted to like this book. I agree with the author that if you like something, even if it seems silly, own it. Don’t worry too much about how others view you. However, I felt like this story went from not having any fun in life to swinging too far the other way and becoming overly obsessed. Neither extreme is healthy. So if you read this book, I’d say to anticipate absurdity and don’t necessarily expect to have balanced or accurate commentary on some of the broader issues it brings up.

I will also post a review to my website when the book is released.

I love the spirit of this book, and how clearly she articulates what fandom means and how deeply meaningful obsessed with something can be. At the same time, I found that the author over-explained and over-defended herself at some points, which made it a little tough to read.

everyone out there who is irony poisoned, like myself, should read this book! such an amazing book about fandom, joy, and passion! i wish i had been able to read this in high school, honestly i could have really used it. a really great memoir that i highly recommend!

This book is a quirky memoir about fandom and motherhood. I think this will be a great read for those in the Benedict Cumberbatch and those who see fandom present in every aspect of their lives.

Okay, who could resist a book with this title? NOT this girl, who has been Sherlock fandom adjacent (though not in the Sherlock fandom) and who knows a thing or two about women who like Cumberbatch.

What I wasn't expecting was the reflective, reassuring nature of this book, which leaned just as heavily on academic sources as it did on stories about people who really, really liked Benedict Cumberbatch. (Though there are those, too. If you are into Cumberbatch, please read the appendix for all sorts of trivia that you probably already know.)

I related to Carvan, who talked about how motherhood stripped away so much of her sense of self and joy that it took a long time to come back to herself. Her story, though, is one of first discovering fandom (through BC, natch), while my personal story is more about reconnecting with fandom - so she had to struggle through some of her own personal biases about women in fandom IN GENERAL, as an adult, unlike those of us who just came to grips with THIS IS HOW WE LIVE NOW, BUFFY, when we were 17.

Because of that, I think it's an important read for anyone who has been in fandom (at any age) and thought they were being juvenile, or silly, or that it was something that they should just GROW OUT OF at some point, while retaining extra poignancy for those of us who have had several soul-sucking years of Parenting Small Children (WHO WE LOVE. WE LOVE THEM DEARLY) to cope with.

Most striking, for me, is the discussion of how the socially acceptable things that bring women joy are supposed to be productive - "quilting bees, canning parties, knitting circles and book groups, which are "the only kind of acceptable and industrious leisure time most women have ever known." - and how women are often dismissed for doing things just for the JOY of it.

Women need play! How radical! But also - how challenging! This is what I loved about this book, intellectually. Someone will pick up this book, and perhaps they will feel permitted to love something that they love. And that can only be a good thing.

Now who's coming to my basement for a very loud Taylor Swift Karaoke party?

This is Not a Book about Benedict Cumberbatch…..except it kind of is.

In this book the author explores themes of passion and finding joy wherever you can, as a woman, a mother, and middle aged person. I love the message of never too old, never too weird, never too late! She explores these themes through the lens of fandom, deep diving into every facet of what it means to be a fan/groupie/obsessed person.

And that is where is al felt a little awkward for me. This book is so intimate and personal, and the author is so revealing, I felt like I was watching her undress. I also question whether or not these depths of passion/obsession are typical or accessible for everyone. I consider myself a person with strong passionate feelings, but I’ve never felt things to the degree that the author seems to. I’m all about pursuing bliss, passion, and joy, but I think balance is essential (albeit more boring).

I’d recommend this book for lovers of any fandom and general memoir appreciators.

An excellent take on fandom, passion, and unabashed joy. A recommended purchase for general non-fictional collections, especially were mil/xennial memoirs are popular.

I wasn't sure about this book going in, but I really enjoyed it, and I think it could be a very transformative read for a lot of people. It's truly not about Benedict Cumberbatch (even if you feel like it might be based on the preface). It's more like a feminist manifesto on loving what you love, on female joy, and on not feeling guilty or stressed about doing things that are purely for your own pleasure. It's about a woman's journey to not being embarrassed by things that are deemed silly or cringey or "girly" by others, and about learning why those things are not only okay, but important.

As someone who's been a nerd unafraid of seeming cringey for pretty much forever, I wouldn't have thought I'd get a lot out of this book to be honest, but I'm really glad I read it. For one, Carvan overthinks this whole identity crisis to such a degree that she talks to experts in various fields, and the things she learns from them were fascinating. She also frames the central questions of the book in so many ways; I think no matter who you are, you'll learn something from this book.

Honestly I mostly wish men would read this. Like, it's mostly about the author's personal journey, and it's an entertaining and easy read, but it also explains so much of the struggles women (and in many cases nonbinary people, and anyone either perceived or raised as a woman) go through that men don't, in a way that I think would be good for them to read.

I took a lot of screenshots and notes while reading this, and enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. And not gonna lie, it also made me want to watch Sherlock.

Thank you to Netgalley and Putnam Books for the chance to read and review this ARC.

This is not a review about Benedict Cumberbatch. (She says as she stares at her Sherlock dvds, and her Sherlock framed piece of art, and her Sherlock funko dolls, and…)

I love to love things. In fact, loving to love things is my favorite hobby so it was a lot of fun to go on Carvan’s journey of trying to understand why she is so in love with Benedict Cumberbatch. Is she too old? Is she wasting her time? Should she hide it from everyone? Is this appropriate behavior for a wife and mother?

Throughout a series of chapters in which she concludes that being in love with the man is, in fact, awesome, she interviews fans from all over the world who tell their own personal stories of passions and desires…many of which involve combating sexism or judgment of other people (men) who just don’t get it. Some of the women also struggle with self-doubt and maybe even a little bit of shame. Sprinkled in are research findings from experts in various fields. Parasocial relationships can be healthy so take that, you know-it-alls on social media!

This is a niche book, I feel. That’s not bad, but I’ve always considered fandom an “if you know, you know” thing. The people who pick up this book will already totally get where Carvan is coming from, but those who continue to judge, refuse to understand, or simply stay unaware will continue to go about their own ways. Honestly I feel sorry for that latter group of people because they are missing out.
Also I absolutely googled that Vanity Fair cover.