5/5 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley for the E-ARC

I could not put this down. This was definitely on my list of most anticipated releases of 2024. Anna Marie Tendler did a beautiful job highlighting her struggles with mental health and the patriarchy.

Unfortunately I could relate all too well to this memoir in so many ways that it made me so angry at the world for the position it consistently puts women in and how we are groomed from such a young age to accept a lot of what men do or say to us.

I have followed Anna for a few years now on my personal page & have fallen in love with her art, her house, her, & of course; Petunia. I am so thankful Anna shared Petunia with the world. It was so special & such a beautiful tribute to read.

It was so beautifully written it felt like I was reading letters from a close friend.

I made sure to preorder a signed copy & highly recommend doing the same or picking it up upon release date.

Thank you Anna for sharing this very real and raw story with us. 🖤

Wow! Ok, I went into this with no idea what I was going to be reading, really. I had read no summary of the book prior, I just knew that the title caught my attention and that I read interested at that point. I’ve been trying to go into more books blindly this year. Just picking them up and reading them with no preconceived ideas of what I was going to be getting into.
This book exceeded all of the things that I could have hoped for. I don’t feel at all like I’m an “anti-man” female, HOWEVER, I have been increasingly aware in my life at the ways that men have treated me and other women around me and in my life. So much of this book truly resonates with every female, because this bias is there, even when you’re unaware of it growing up. Not once you become aware of it, it’s so hard not to see, and so hard not to get frustrated by the lack of care and respect of those around you. So when reading this, I could feel AMT’s frustration, her irritation and her downright disgust at times with men. “Fucking men.”
The mental health aspects of the book had me weeping at times. Feeling seen, vulnerable, and powerful at the end knowing that we aren’t alone in this.
I can’t say enough about this book. I loved it!
I’d like to thank the publisher for the advanced readers copy.

"Where's the pain?"

"My Ovaries."

"Could you be pregnant?"

"No." Jesus Christ, didn't these people talk to each other? "I have my period."

"Oh"-he looked across my supine body at the other EMT-"it's just your period?"

"I don't know if it's just my period," I said, mocking him, but I also worried maybe it was just my period.

"You're as white as the sheet wrapped around you. You look like you need to put some lipstick on."


Anna Marie Tendler's memoir Men Have Called Her Crazy opens with Tendler's time in a mental health facility as she deals with her anxiety and her depression. She weaves a tale of how even from the earliest time of her life, men have shaped her mental landscape, starting with the man she called her father, who after her parent's divorce, left last effects on both Tendler and her mother, and in turn Tendler's mother left her mark as well. As she weaves the story of taking back control of her mental health with those who have shaped her life, I found myself connecting with Tendler's word on a certain level, having had my own mental health concerns throughout my life.

The quote above really stuck out to me and made me so angry for Tendler. In excruciating pain from a cyst on her ovaries, she calls an ambulance after finding she truly couldn't help herself on her own, and that was how the male EMT's responded to her concerns. It just shows, how little men often find themselves concerned with realties of women.

The story that Tendler tells is beautiful and she finds herself taking back her power. If you ever dealt with mental health issues, feminine rage, or just life as a woman, please pick up this book. I highly recommend it.

I want to thank NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. Please consider picking up a copy when it hits shelves August 13, 2024.

You know how you read through some books and think “this book is an arduous task” so you look and it turns out that the book is only 200 pages? And then there are books that you get to the end of and think “Wait—what—it’s over already? How did that go by so quickly?” This book is the latter and speaks to Tendler’s unforgettable storytelling.

Men Have Called Her Crazy opens with Tendler recounting the story of checking herself in to a facility for psychiatric care. The memoir follows the storyline of her stay at the facility, weaving with it the separate storyline of what brought her there, focusing on her childhood and interactions with different men throughout her life.

Tendler intimately and unflinchingly recounts her experiences with depression, anxiety, disordered eating, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and lack of identity while reflecting on her treatment and recovery. She writes her story beautifully and eloquently, making my heart ache with empathy and understanding at some of the familiarity of the story. It was a treat to bear witness to her craft and to ultimately watch her step in to her self.

Men Have Called Her Crazy is striking. A story of grace, self-discovery, redemption, and re-invention. A wonderful read.

Thank you Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review. Available 08/13/2024!

Thank you Netgalley for the arc!

The first half of the book was mainly about her hospital stay and the second half went further into past relationships, her dog, and briefly motherhood. I was hoping to get a bit more of her recovery afterwards and going forward. I think the childhood inclusions were interesting and the hospital stay as well but I got alittle lost after the 60% mark because it seemed like the rest of the book went into her hatred of men.
This book talked largly about a handful of the authors past relationships, some serious, some short lived, so I assumed somewhere we would get to hear about her ex husband. There were few mentions throughout about him in passing, but we were never able to disect how that relationship in her life could have and most likely did effect her.

All the stars!!! Anna Marie Tendler wrote the most real, vulnerable, and brilliant memoir in Men Have Called Her Crazy. Her stories and anecdotes detail the ways in which she specifically, but women overall, are continuously victimized by misogyny, the mental health system, and men in general.

She talks about her experiences at a psychiatric hospital and common misconceptions about such a stay. I loved reading about her growth and relationships with other folks at the facility and the vulnerable way in which she shares her thoughts and feelings during her time there. Tendler also pulls out various crucial experiences from her past and tells the reader about them and how they’ve shaped her into who she is today with riveting storytelling.

The themes and experiences in this book are really dark at times and can be filled with despair, but Anna Marie Tendler writes with such a beautiful hope, that you can easily see how lovable and strong a person she is. I will be recommending this to anyone and everyone and I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to read an early copy of it.

Thank you @SimonBooks #SimonBooksBuddy for the free ARC to read and review!!

ta and happy summer! i hope you all have been reading great things. I have been having a bit of a personal growth/adjustment period, really working through a lot in my therapy and *attempting* to start a meditation practice. 🧘‍♀️ regardless I am reading as it ALWAYS soothes, informs, and inspires me! I am now reading an ARC I was SO psyched to receive, @annamtendler new memoir “Men Have Called Her Crazy”! Highly anticipated by many of the artist’s supporters- myself included- this is the story of Tendler’s voluntary stay in a psychiatric hospital which also treated addiction, though she did not go for that reason. Many people may know her ex, who is famous, but not someone I will waste any letters talking about here. I’m not even done with this book and I know I’ll be reccomending it! Raw with emotion, Tendler’s narrative voice is instantly engaging for the reader and brings you not only into her mind, but her mannerisms and inner voice as well. I love that she laid everything on the page, including her struggle with hating men as a whole and how she dealt with that while healing. This book will be out on August 13, and I am again so grateful to AMT and @simonandschuster via @netgalley for this advance copy! 😍👏 #advancereadercopy #arc #arcgalley #simonandschuster #netgalley #annamarietendler #memoir #menhavecalledhercrazy #advancereaderscopy

This book reads like a novel! I really loved the insight on mental illness, inpatient treatment as well as outpatient treatment and could relate to some of the feelings of the author. She beautifully told her story in the present while weaving her past into the narrative. The one criticism I have is that she often refers to her ex-husband or of getting a divorce, but we never hear that story. It just felt like a missing part of the story. This was a fast read because I was so engrossed with the story of the author's life. I will recommend this book to everyone to help them understand mental illness and to help them understand they are not alone in their feelings!

I feel incredibly lucky to have read this snippet of Tendler’s brain. She has such a powerful voice when she is writing about inherently vulnerable moments. I felt very understood.

Anna Marie Tendler's words still stick with me even months after finishing her memoir. She is an artist in every sense, crafting beautiful imagery in the readers mind, such as when she describes her friend playing violin, and tragic imagery in her suicidal ideation. There is a temptation to read this book as if it were a tell-all of her relationship with John Mulaney, but it is not. In the words of Maggie Smith, it is a "tell mine". She is telling her story, and at the same time reclaiming her story. In getting to know Anna, we get to know why she deserves stability and happiness. I recommend this memoir to anyone with friends, anyone who is a woman, and anyone who has suffered. I loved this book!

First thing's first: If you're coming to this book hoping for some tea related to Tendler's high-profile relationship, you're in the wrong place. My favorite thing about this memoir is the way Tendler absolutely refuses to be defined by this relationship that may well be the reason a lot of folks pick it up. Instead, she details her journey through past relationships and childhood traumas that led her to seek inpatient care for suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression, and disordered eating. I found Tendler's writing to be pleasantly confident and straightforward, and quite caring when discussing her time with the other women at her hospital. Those sections were the most effective for me — and some of Tendler's own revelations hit home for me, too.

This is a very well-written book. Rather than including details about her high-profile divorce, the writer focuses on the true main character in her life — herself. It makes for a more interesting book, focusing on Tendler's creative background, future aspirations and her journey as an individual. And, Tendler's bond with her dog, Petunia is a love story in itself. "Men Have Called Her Crazy" may not be the book that readers expected when it was announced, but I believe it is better, deeper and more real.

Like many others, I was engaged in the social media drama that played out between John Mulaney and Anna Tendler. I didn't expect much from this book, but I found myself to be somewhat pleasantly surprised. While I did find the prose to be a bit much sometimes, Tendler clearly has a knack for the arts, and it shows. Not a book I would go back and read again, probably, but I did enjoy the pleasure of getting to read it early.

Men Have Called Her Crazy is an unflinchingly honest and vulnerable account of the life thus far of Anna Tendler. Like her collection of self portraits, her memoir is complicated and sometimes uncomfortable and disturbing. While incredibly well written, the goal of the work is not to leave the reader feeling settled or easy. I found her descriptions of feeling emotionally flooded particularly well done and validating. I could almost feel my own adrenaline pumping while reading her bodily response to highly triggering circumstances.

She largely left out details of her time being married; nothing about her getting married or about her divorce. It was well done, you might not even notice she skipped it, but her casual dismissal of that chunk of her life was odd once noted. Another observation I found interesting was that she seemed protective of the men in the romantic relationships she did describe; even as she railed against the patriarchy, she never attacked the men directly as she described the deterioration of each relationship. She turned all her critical prowess inward against herself. I’m not sure if it was by design or unconsciously done, but the most troubling relationship dynamics described were the maternal relationship dynamics with females. It’s mentioned as being observed at one point and it had me replaying scenes and I could not disagree that there is an underlying something there. She has a strong inner critic which held her captive in unhealthy relationships time and time again, but even as she can see the red flags, she does not verbally lash out at any of them the way she lashes and rails against herself.

I’d like to think of the end of this memoir as just the beginning. Anna is articulate with great instincts and inhuman resilience, and this book is a testament to her will to survive.

I’d like to thank Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Oh, Anna Tendler's experiences are so relatable. She handles telling her life story with grace and humor and great insight. I can't say I was comfortable or even agree with her views on patriarchy and her interaction/feelings about men. But, I don't have to, be as they are her experiences and thoughts. This was just refreshing and very well written. It's a quick and easy read, and I would bet dollars to doughnuts that if you are willing, you will see parts of yourself within these pages.

This book was not at all what I was expecting, but I really enjoyed it. Anna Marie Tendler’s prose is direct and engaging, and she writes with vulnerability and self-awareness. I particularly loved her writing about her dog, Petunia, and about her complicated relationship with her mother. I also really appreciated the through-line of female friendship and support that kind of anchored the book. The only thing missing for me was that I found myself wishing there had been a little more exploration and analysis of the author’s feelings around men. There were vignettes pulled from throughout her life interspersed with the stories from the mental health facility, but they felt sort of disjointed from her landing at a facility where she feels unprepared to even be around men. I imagine there were aspects of her marriage that contributed that she chose to omit, which I can understand, but I do think the cohesiveness of the memoir suffered a bit from her decision to largely leave her decade-long marriage out of the story. That said, I still thought it was great overall and would highly recommend.

This book personally resonated with me on the deepest of levels. Women have faced thousands of years of being told to be quiet, kind, happy, and thankful. Anything short of this has been deemed hysteria — a term coined by psychologists to define a physical ailment associated with the female genitalia causing ungovernable excess emotion. If women don’t ascribe to their gender expectations, they were called CRAZY.

Anna Marie Tendler‘s story is one of rightful anger. It is said so poignantly, so eloquently, and with such raw authenticity. This is a meditation, a retrospective of her life and her loves throughout her life, and how they contributed to the building trauma of her life. It’s interesting that she didn’t say anything about her marriage/divorce, but I understand some things are better left unsaid. I totally respect that decision. I think there’s so much relatable content within these pages, the introversion and creativity and brilliance and anxiety and depression and passion. It’s a truly beautiful story.

It is one of the books that I will take out of 2024 and keep close to my heart for the rest of my life. A new Roman Empire. I highly recommend it to every single one of you.

Men Have Called Her Crazy is Anna Marie Tendler’s catalogue of her life so far, centered around her experience with mental illness, the men who have entered and exited her life, and all of the emotions caught up in between.

This book goes out of its way to not be about one particular man I think many people will pick it up hoping it will be about. It’s a very pointed choice, and I think it does a very good job of quietly emphasizing the entire time that Tendler is her own person, just like we all are, and to assume the most important thing about someone, especially a woman, is the person they’re married to is deeply uncurious and dehumanizing.

Tendler can write. She’s unflinching and honest, while still having empathy for the person that she used to be. This book does at times feel like a very open stream of consciousness as Tendler looks back at periods in her past to understand how they contributed to her ten day stay at a psychiatric hospital, that stay being the center and framing device of the entire memoir.

I described this to my friend as a Woman’s Memoir and I do think it is one where many women will find some element of Tendler’s life deeply relatable. I found the way she talked about her mother’s presence in her life particularly moving. I think she does a really good job of explaining what it’s like to love someone who has undoubtedly hurt you but also being able to forgive them without causing yourself more pain and implementing boundaries.

This is a beautiful, moving piece of work and we are all so lucky that Tendler has decided to share it with us.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the eARC.

Absolutely beautiful writing and quite possibly the most relatable memoir I've read. This is being released at the perfect time in my life, so many of AMT's discussed struggles are things I'm currently working on myself and it was nice to read someone having the exact same thoughts. While I'm struggling to come up with words, this is a must read and possibly my favorite book of the year.

Men Have Called Her Crazy is an autobiography from Anna Marie Tendler. The book goes back and forth between present day and her teenage to early 20s. She goes into detail her struggles with anxiety, depression, cutting and thoughts of unaliving herself. As a woman of a similar age, I could relate to the struggles of dating, having to rely on a man and going back and forth with wanting to be a mother.

I enjoying hearing about her relationships she made while she was hospitalized in early 2021. I also enjoyed hearing about her dog, Petunia. I was a fan of her ex husband and would hear stories of Pentunia in his stand up act. If you are looking to her bashing her ex, or even talking about him, you won't. This book is about her.

She also went into detail about going through a round of IVF, I has no idea it was so involved.

I read this book pretty quickly, within 3 days. I recommend this book to anyone struggling with mental illness, IVF and the horrors of dating in your 30s.