The Chronically Unhappy Narcissist

By: J. B. Snow

Narrated by: Anneliese Rennie

Length: 44 mins

Publisher's summary

The narcissist and his partner are nearly always doomed for failure. The narcissist has too many narcissists and codependents in his life, thus he is never able to juggle everyone and make everyone happy. He is stretched too thin by his obligations. Being the people-pleaser that he is, he cannot seem to satisfy any of them while at the same time satisfying himself. Too many people depend upon the narcissist for their survival, and he depends too much upon his parasitic relationship with those people to ever walk away from them.

The narcissist has low self-esteem, and he has failed at most things throughout his life. Thus, the narcissist becomes constantly paranoid. He is constantly feeling like a failure. He is constantly looking around to see if he is going to get in trouble with someone for not doing something right. He is ever waiting for an iron fist to come down and someone to yell at him. He has built up fear, anger and rage. The moment that he even smells someone getting ready to yell at him for something, he is already ready to blow up in a big way.

The narcissist no longer has kid-size tantrums that he did when he failed as a child. He is angry about his constant failures in life, and thus he releases an adult size rage toward anyone who even hints at being discouraged with him. Other people's expectations of him are too high, and also his expectations of himself are set too high. He is constantly jumping through hoops in trying to perfect everything, thus he never actually perfects anything at all.

©2017 J.B. Snow (P)2017 J.B. Snow

Desperately needs an editor

The content of this book can shed insight into a certain type of person. The type of person presented here is very specific -- it's basically anyone in a Woody Allen movie. What the author here calls narcissistic is what previous generations might call neurotic. Ill-prepared to live a happy life, this person is unhappy, over analyzing, overwhelmed, destructive to relationships, was raised by people with the same qualities, and will themselves raise children with these qualities. (Apparently this person is also sometimes capable of contradictory actions like getting divorced and staying in an unhappy marriage instead of divorcing.) The Chronically Unhappy Narcissist combs through all areas of life showing what this type of person is like and how they treat and mistreat others.

Despite the insight, this book has 2 major drawbacks which are the impetus behind my review title

1) This is a less of a book and more of an organized grouping of bullet points. Nearly every sentence is a stand-alone point of analysis about the life and personality of a narcissist. The result is a flow that is abysmal. The great narration helps but it can only do so much to combat a structure that reads like a kids book. Every sentence is: The narcissist is xyz. Unedited passage: "The narcissist has low self-esteem, and he has failed at most things throughout his life. Thus, the narcissist becomes constantly paranoid. He is constantly feeling like a failure. He is constantly looking around to see if he is going to get in trouble with someone for not doing something right. He is ever waiting for an iron fist to come down and someone to yell at him. He has built up fear, anger and rage." See Jane. See Jane run. Run Jane run.

2) It's a self-help book with no help. The analysis is enlightening but then what? If the book is meant for narcissists, is there hope for change? If meant for victims of narcissism, is this so we can avoid such a person? Or understand them? Or help them? Simply being judgmental lacks any sense of a thesis statement. I ended the book thinking: I largely agree, so what?

Obviously a lot of time and thought went into writing The Chronically Unhappy Narcissist. It's much more than a first draft but falls short of being a final product.

Top notch narration. This couldn't have been an easy one to read and she did a great job keeping it flowing.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

Textbook 🕮

Simply put, this is a look into and observations of narcissists. The author gives examples and easily understandable situations for the lay reader.

Anneliese Rennie gives a warm performance of material that could be very professorial.

I feel I learned a lot from listening to this audiobook.

*I received this book in exchange for writing an unbiased review.

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The chronically unhappy narcissist

This was way too lighthearted and entertaining.There was little real information.Not what I was expecting.Annelisse Rennie is a fine narrator.“I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.”

Good read

The Chronically Unhappy Narcissist by J.B. Snow was a good read. There was a lot of good information although it felt like it jumped around a lot.

I'm not sure... Is this a satire?

I was expecting a more “here are the facts” kind of book, expert opinion, etc. But I’m not sure what to believe or if it’s meant to be a satire?

Annelisse has a nice voice, however the tone she used for this narration was kind of gossipy and exaggerated rather than knowledgeable, maybe that is why I was not sure how to listen to this book, is it a satirical or informational book?

I received this audio-book free for an honest review by the author, narrator, or publisher. Thank you!!!

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I can't say I believe a lot of this information

Some of this is narcissistic behavior but I feel the author is really reaching with a lot of it. I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

Clearly biased

Apparently, the author of this book was once married to someone she diagnosed as a narcissist, but many of the things she says in this book are not narcissistic behavior. Very unscientific in descriptions of a narcissist and offered nothing worthwhile. The narrator was not bad, but there was excess noise in the background. Needed an audio editor to clean it up before going live with it.

I received a free copy of this book to preview.