This harrowing memoir opens with Suleyman being accompanied to an abortion clinic in Queens by her seemingly supportive boyfriend. After the procedure, she returns to the waiting room, and her boyfriend had vanished. After the confused Suleyman reaches out to one of her boyfriend’s friends, she receives a menacing text: “Do not reach out to my friends again. You are ruined. There is nothing good or human about you. You are not someone anyone should ever be with. No one should love you.” When she returns to her apartment, “his” (he is referred to as “his” throughout the memoir) clothing and some of her belongings, were gone with him. Security cameras show that he had emptied out the apartment while Suleyman was at the clinic.

Looking back on their relationship, the red flags seem obvious from those at a remove. He was a stand-up comic whose routine was heavily misogynistic. He explained his inability to leave Suleyman’s apartment because he suffered from agoraphobia. Unusual behavior was a result of his mental disabilities, specifically his high functioning autism. Weeks when he was incommunicado were due to his tending to his dying mother in Atlanta. And Suleyman was vulnerable. She was new to New York and its pernicious dating scene. The joke was that “relationships started in November when it was too cold to go out, then ended in April when it was warm enough to meet someone new.” Suleyman also posits that women are taught to fear failure and to abandon no one and nothing.

Suleyman finds a picture of “him” on Instagram posted by a woman named Zoe who lived in Australia with a note that read, “Unfortunately, the guy in the picture turned out to be a psychopath.” Suleyman reached out to Zoe, and was told that she was not the first. Women from New York, London, Oslo, Helsinki, and Sydney began to post their own all too familiar stories spanning many years. Countless women reported that his mental illness was a feature in their relationships as was his mother who was dying of cancer, and many had been exploited for cabs, food, and lodging or swindled out of thousands of dollars. All of these women felt manipulated and emotionally tortured, but were able to find solace in commiserating with other smart, accomplished, vibrant women who had also fallen for his charms. Suleyman has crafted a powerful personal story, but enlarges the scope by addressing a complicit world that allows men like “him” to repeatedly victimize women. Thank you Harper and Net Galley for this cautionary tale that should be required reading for any woman who feels unease in a relationship.

3.75 ⭐️ Devoured this book in one sitting. I will preface this by saying that my review is based on the contents of the story as the experiences shared are by all of these women is rage inducing, heartbreaking, and far too relatable. However, the writing style was not for me - it was a little hard to follow and felt a bit repetitive at times. Certain passages in between her recount of events were skimable.

Please be aware of potential triggers before reading

Some quotes that stuck out:

“There wasn’t an obvious moment when he, or the relationship, changed. Instances injected into the good, until the memory of the good was the only thing keeping you.”

“And so I needed to know precisely what had made me unlovable. Not so I might improve myself once I had an extensive catalogue of all that was wrong, but so I could confirm that I was right to feel I had never been good enough.”

“There is fearlessness in the way women love each other.”

Thank you to the author and publishers for sending me this e-ARC through NetGalley

It feels wrong to criticize or put a rating on someone’s life.
But I will say that this is a devastating story that was written poorly. I wish it wasn’t so repetitive and I didn’t really feel the metaphor of “the chain.”
Thank you netgalley and Harper Collins for the e-arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

Such an important memoir slash social commentary on the legacy of misogyny and violence against women with a particular focus on one manipulative, horrific man that duped, stole and abused hundreds of women. I loved that the author takes a no holds barred look at just how horribly women have been treated by men over the years and the reasons why women often let it happen but that we are so much stronger when we come together and share our stories. Excellent on audio, this is a definite must read! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for an honest review!

CW: abortion

Raw brave intimate Chimene Suleyman shares her relationship with a man a person who is a user of women who as she discovers has a chain of women he has mistreated.As the women connect and share their stories of their treatment by this man my heart went out to them .I could not put the Chain down an important memoir for women to read.#netgalley #harper

I received a Netgalley ARC of The Chain. These are my honest thoughts.

If you're a fan of women finding solidarity in the shared stories of misogyny, this is your book. The primary villain is an ex of the author, who did her, and every other woman he ever met, extremely wrong in ways it's hard to understand if you have empathy and a conscience.

But the story isn't only about this unnamed man, although the thread of the harm he did is woven through the story. It's also a story of other men, of a system and a society that will not hold these men accountable, and of how women navigate this world alone and together.

Chimene Suleyman is open, and vulnerable, and raw about her experience and the aftermath. The damage this man left in his wake. She speaks of loss due to her abortion. She speaks of almost all-encompassing depression, and she speaks of the chain created by women who share their stories coming together.

This was almost a perfect book for me other than timelines got a little muddled on occasion.

Brave and intimate - I couldn't put this memoir down. Excellent storytelling though heartbreaking at times there is hope. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

In this brief but pain-filled book, author Chimene Suleyman shares the story of her relationship with a deceptive, even psychopathic "player" of women. It was not enough for this man, a comedian by trade, to express his contempt for women in general through vile jokes; he also made a habit out of leading his (multiple) girlfriends on, lying to them, and always disappearing at the most crucial of moments. Suleyman links her story to the MeToo movement and is ultimately grateful for the support she receives from the "sisterhood" of those who were manipulated and abandoned by this deplorable man.

<em>The Chain</em> is not for readers with delicate sensibilities; Suleyman, is honest about her raw feelings of contempt for her ex. There's lots of profanity as well as a detailed description of the author's experience with abortion.

Still this book is a valuable contribution to the literature of the "MeToo" movement.

I received a free electronic copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated in any way.

On the day of her abortion, a woman finds that the father of her embryo has vanished. This begins a saga of figuring out who he really is and his intentions. She manages to figure out that he was not who he appeared to be, and lied throughout their relationship, as he had many other relationships with other women he had no intention of committing to.

This memoir is part confessional, part commentary on the state of womens' place in a male-dominated society that dismisses us and excuses men as they abuse, in however subtle ways, the women they claim to depend on.

The author's only saving grace is amassing a cadre of women who had been abused similarly by the same man, and together they created social media profiles and descriptions warning others who may fall prey to his sociopathic schemes.

A feminist manifesto as well as a memoir of grief.