Well, let me say it outright: Donna Andersen’s latest book, Red Flags of Love Fraud, is hands-down the best book I’ve ever read on the subject of who sociopaths are, everything you need to know about them, and everything you need to know to reduce your risk of being violated by them.
What a riveting book this is. I had a seriously hard putting it down, and never did for long. Andersen intermixes comprehensive information about every aspect of the sociopath’s tendencies and modus operandi, with countless fascinating, concise case examples of sociopaths exhibiting their behaviors—that is, showing exactly what they look like—and how their victims experience their transgressions.
At the heart of this fantastic book are Andersen’s ten “red flag” signs that you are involved with a sociopath. The signs she identifies are spot-on, and explained and developed with her usual unmatched clarity and captivating narrative skills.
It’s no exaggeration, nor is it grandiose, to say that reading this book will make of you an “expert” about sociopaths—it’s really that comprehensively informative. But again, the book’s greater accomplishment is to arm you with every applicable tool and insight available to identify the sociopath and jettison him or her from your life, before he or she upends yours.
By now we know that Donna Andersen knows sociopaths as intimately and completely as anyone out there; my personal view is that she writes about them, and educates about them, as she does in this, her newest, spellbinding book, like no one out there.
Wow Steve! Thank you so much! I really appreciate your recommendation – because you certainly know what these characters are all about.
I agree Steve! I think donna has a PhD in psychopathy!
I totally agree! I was stunned when I read it. All the characteristics and manipulations were EXACTLY what I experienced. I wish I knew then what I know now–It would have saved me from the worst 10 months of my life.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Donna.
I’ll be honest, I was not in a great hurry to buy this book because I am on a tight budget and also have read so many books on sociopathy and personality disorders. I was thinking, do I really NEED this book right now? I decided I’d get it, once I had the money. I read Donna’s other book and thought it was great, so I was really looking forward to reading this one.
I ordered the book recently and it arrived this week, and I’ve read it — so now I can comment!
What I like about it is its conciseness and comprehensiveness. So many of the other books I have read get bogged down in details or go off in unclear directions, or are incomplete. Donna’s book is to the point, the examples are long enough to be useful but short enough that we move on quickly from one thing to another. The cumulative effect of this is a lot of information condensed and packed into a book that is easy to read in a very short time, and the information sticks with you. It is indeed comprehensive. I highly recommend it.
As well, there is a good balance between objectivity/observation, and the real emotions of the individuals illustrating the examples. It is clear that sociopaths absolutely affect our emotions, and the victims of sociopaths are not put down for having emotional reactions to being deceived.
Another thing about this book which fits it into a unique category is that it is written NOT by a therapist, NOT by an ivory tower academic, NOT by a lawyer-turned-crusader-for-justice (all observers), but by someone who has lived through this experience. And the examples are the real voices of people who have lived through this experience. These voices are missing in all of the other books. Donna’s examples and stories are real and verbatim and included as witnesses speaking, in a way, directly to the reader — unlike the made-up or composite examples in the other books.
And you know, that makes a difference. I know that these are real people who have lived through something very much like what I lived through — in many cases, something worse.
Finally, Donna makes it all believable in a logical way — nothing about any of the included examples seems fantastical or exaggerated. And as we know, being “believed” is one of the things which frequently does not happen to us, adding insult to injury.
This book is definitely a valuable contribution to the literature.
I honestly can barely wait to have the means to get both of Donna’s books. Oddly enough, I wanted to purchase the first book while I was still with the exspath and he always found some way to nix the purchase. He was busy paying for his BDSM sex parties, I guess….lots of great catering at those gatherings! Sheeeeeeeeeeyit.
20 years – thank you so much! I really appreciate your kind words.
It is so important to get this information out – I hope people will read the book before they get involved, and avoid all the heartache.
Donna, the problem with your book is that I don’t think many people will read it WHILE they are “happy” it is the people who are NOT happy, maybe fairly early in the relationship (months maybe instead of years) who will read it and extricate themselves from whomever is making them unhappy. Sooner hopefully than later, but extricate themselves before it gets worse.
I can’t see very many “happy” people picking it up…but those who are SEEKING information because they are UN-happy.
I think it should be required reading for teenagers, but I doubt that they would really “get it” even though it is clearly and concisely put but those who have experienced or are experiencing UN happiness in a relationship high in abuse of any kind, they will GET IT from the book for sure.
I think it is an unfortunate thing about people is that we don’t want to learn about alcoholism until we are having some sort of a relationship that is dysfunctional due to alcohol. We don’t want to learn about diabetes until we get it, even if it is in our genetic make up and we should learn about how to prevent its onset, but once we start having trouble with those things we open our minds more….and we learn about the problematic things…because if we don’t learn about it the consequences double, treble and become much worse.
I’m glad that the book is now available and like I said in my review I think we all need to buy two, one to keep and one to give away to a friend who needs it, and I think we all have at least one friend who needs it.
Oxy, on the other hand….
after the victim finds and reads Donna’s book, he or she can hand it off to the “disbelievers” in their circle. I did something like that when I left my spath and had found Patricia Evans’ book about verbally abusive relationships SO helpful. I passed that book along to my family members who were so uncomprehending about what I was telling them.
This is the way it seems to be: those who need or are ready for the lesson will have ears to hear it. Otherwise… it will just seem like nonsense or fantasy.
Maybe for teenagers or the general population, it is enough to simply have an “awareness” that there is something called sociopathic relationships (kind of like awareness of alcoholism or diabetes… so that IF that should occur, you at least know enough to google it!).
Oxy,
I was very happy when I noticed that the spath lied so much. I still loved him, but I wanted to understand, so I read “People of the Lie”. Unfortunately, I didn’t get it.
I’m reading Donna’s book now. It is more targeted toward love relationshits than Peck’s book. I still can’t figure out if I would have believed it, though. Not that there is anything wrong with the book, it’s perfect. But denial is a REALLY REALLY hard thing to break through. My denial was not about my spath being a great guy, my denial was that evil existed and that it looked so normal, so NICE! That is what I could never wrap my head around.
The fact that Scott Peck used the word evil, just drove me deeper into denial. I feared evil, I was raised to fear it. I needed to believe that I would recognize it if I saw it. Without that belief, my self-confidence would shatter. Oh well, it got shattered BIG TIME.
But then, I learned the red flags and I realize too that I survived 25 years of pure evil, so my self-confidence is back.
I also know that I could ALWAYS see it. It never fooled me. I fooled MYSELF with my denial. Getting rid of denial is the most empowering thing we can do.
20 years – you are right. Awareness is the key. If people have at least heard of sociopathy, have a general idea that it’s bad – if they start seeing weird behavior, maybe they’ll look into it further.