As a mental health professional, the concept of this book was intriguing. Unfortunately, as the title suggests, this book was in fact written by a sociopath and it is readily apparent that the author does not care about his or her audience. Reading this is comparable to reading the DSM, if the DSM had characters. The author included little anecdotes about her life growing up, going to college and law school, and professional career, but then gets away from the story to philosophize about how her sociopathy affected her decisions in various stages of her life. This wouldn't be so bad if the philosophizing didn't significantly outweigh the actual anecdotes about her life. I was easily bored and truth be told could not actually finish this book because of its tediousness and monotony. I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

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I first learned of this book several years back--probably shortly after it was published (2013)--when there was a segment on national public radio. I don't believe the author was the interviewee, however. I requested the book from the library (glad I didn't buy it). While the opening captured my attention, the rest of the book wasn't all that interesting. However, there were some things that stuck in my mind, particularly because I was doubtful that they were true.

According to some reviewers (Amazon) and also by my own google searching, "M.E." is actually Jamie R. Lund. A resume for Jamie Lund parallels many of the educational and work experiences M.E. writes about. M.E. talks about her work for a law firm. She acknowledges that she was not that interested in the actual work; she also noted that she frequently didn't even show up for work (I think one time it was 2-3 weeks straight). Yet, she also talks about all her trial experience and how she was so good at picking prospective jurors who would find in favor of her clients.

According to Jamie Lund's online resume, the only law firm she worked for was Irell and Manella (2005, 2006-2008). I googled the firm name and got several results. The American Bar Association had a short article in 2019 about the firm. It stated that five years earlier the firm had 187 lawyers but was now down to 87; another google result said the firm at one time had a high of over 220 lawyers. I'm a lawyer and have heard that "associates" (newly minted lawyers) at large firms, such as Irell and Manella, do not see the inside of a courtroom for YEARS--in fact, they often don't even have a face-to-face meeting with clients for years. Instead, they do a lot of "grunt work." So, it stretches belief that even though M.E. spent less than three years with Irell and Manella, she apparently did a lot of litigation.

M.E. also talked about her periods of unemployment. Yet, she also claimed that she had "fully funded" her retirement account by the time she turned 30.

M.E. talked about "loving" one of her friends. She also wrote the book under a pseudonym because she didn't want to cause embarrassment or stress for some of her family. Psychopaths aren't supposed to have these feelings.

I also found a 2016 Reddit article online that stated Jamie Lund had changed her name to Jamie Townsend after a "cringey" appearance on Dr. Phil. It said that she was fired from her (very part-time) professor job at St. Mary's U (TX) after she was identified as the author. She was promised tenure at BYU, her alma mater, but that was nullified.

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