I, Too, Am Calling Anna Marie Tendler Crazy

Anna Marie Tendler, likely victim to a mighty NDA, spares no room in her memoir for discussion of her ex husband. I will do the same.

And while I will not falsely claim to be particularly enthused about this decision, (as niche celebrity gossip is one of my most proficient hobbies) it somehow still was not a reason why the book made me physically roll my eyes at various times. 

I am also humbly attempting to write this review as a stylized retaliation to her prose. After the flat, myopic, and laughably repetitive content of her pages (what debt does she owe to the word engendered?), I need to exercise my vocabulary. Bear with me. 

Despite these perhaps unwarranted and/or self-aggrandizing critiques on her style, I cannot stop myself from thinking about Anne Marie Tendler. I scroll Reddit threads where anons discuss her unsettling relationship with her therapist, or her poorly disguised pro-ana embellishments, or her inability to hold a job. I especially read other reviews of this book. It has established a stark divide in the Caroline Calloway-adjacent community, some aligning it along the likes of Girl, Interrupted, and others baffled by the 16-year-old-girl-esc musings that have been proudly produced by this 38 year old woman.

While Anna’s “high road” route of obfuscating her most public relationship, which unfortunately muddles a book that chronicles each and every one of her other relationships in a detailed timeline, she is certain to emphasize her Hatred of All Men. Anna often says:

“I hate men.”

“Fucking men.

“He was surprisingly (positive adjective), for a man.”

By the end of the book I honestly felt a deep sadness for the opposite gender. Her rhetoric was so cold, so void of nuance, so shockingly immature. Her definition of Feminism could fit on the front of a Hallmark greeting card. A favorite review said it better than I can:

“Tendler’s view on the patriarchy and feminism reminds me of my beliefs when I was 17. This is concerning because she is almost 40 years old. There are glimpses of progress, like her using DBT therapy to remind herself to not be upset at this random man that she doesn’t know. Or like when she finally asked herself “Do I actually like him, or do I want him to like me.” I understand everyone’s journey is different, but these epiphanies she has felt so late in life as a supposedly lifelong feminist. She still has an introductory version of feminism that many times feels disingenuous.”

This reviewer also awakened me to why the book was trapped within my subconscious despite my distaste for it in almost all aspects: I could have gone the Anna Marie Tendler route. I, at one point, was on my way there. I could have withered away into Victorian lampshade design and denial, into a life of bad habits and aesthetics. But I am merely 23 and have already outgrown the youthfully romanticized goal of loathing men while they bankroll your unfulfilling life. I sympathize with her, but I am not impressed by her. And I will not beat a dead horse when so many other reviews have said it better than I ever could, so I will be brief: Anna has very little character growth in the span of these just shy of 300 pages. 

I will now list some more lines where I dog-eared the page because I rolled my eyes:

• “Soon I would discover I only had to look outside high school to find boys who would pay attention to me”

• Every mention of her “tiny wrists”

• “I enjoyed the way pushing petunia around allowed me to cosplay motherhood”

(Petunia is her dog)

So, I guess what I am trying to say is:

Anna, men may have called you crazy, but so am I.