I didn’t love this book, and I think it's equally my own fault and the author’s. I approached it with the expectation, led by the book's description, that it would offer a balanced blend of academic exploration and anecdotal advice on engaging with art created by individuals society deems "monstrous," whether due to questionable morality or outright crimes. However, the book didn't meet these expectations. Claire Dederer assumes a predominantly memoirist role in "Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma," posing a myriad of rhetorical questions to prompt moral reflection between her own critiques, opinions, and personal anecdotes.

She delves into the impact of an artist’s biography on their art, questioning whether one can still appreciate and consume the work of individuals guilty of rape, pedophilia, or alcoholism. Yet, despite posing these questions, the book doesn’t provide definitive answers. At the end of each chapter, I anticipated some form of conclusion or resolution, which never materialized. Readers are left to draw their own conclusions, which, while not inherently negative, didn't match the analysis I anticipated.

Amidst Dederer’s plethora of opinions, there are a few nuggets of wisdom scattered throughout the text. Early on, she explores the concept of "genius" and the absolution often associated with it. Dederer argues that those labeled as "genius" often learn to trust their impulses, citing impulsivity as a source of creativity. This trust in their instincts can lead to a belief that yielding to all impulses, regardless of their nature, is essential to maintain creativity—a feedback loop with potentially dire consequences. She provocatively questions whether the creator's moral failings overshadow their artistic achievements or vice versa.

Dederer also addresses the audience's dilemma of conflating personal feelings with moral truths. She contends that we as a society (and she makes many a point to discuss how ‘we’ becomes an absolution of the ‘I’) tends to equate personal feelings with incontrovertible moral standards, perceiving any challenge to these feelings as an attack on individual morality. After all, we are what we consume, she argues. Dederer critiques society's growing obsession with obsession itself. There is no longer just liking something. “I’m obsessed with this mascara”, “I’m obsessed with Harry Styles”, “I’m obsessed with Trader Joe’s”, what we like becomes who we are. This raises further questions about complicity in consuming art created by morally dubious individuals, as well as the impact of parasocial relationships on self-perception and capitalism's influence on our consumption habits.

Personally, I found Dederer's writing style repetitive and disjointed. She often introduces new topics abruptly, leaving readers struggling to discern the connection with preceding discussions. There was many a moment where I was thinking "how on earth did we get here??", and forcing me to double back through previous pages in search of the connection.

Additionally, conflating crimes as severe as child rape with topics like working motherhood struck me as both absurd and harmful. While she eventually concludes that "we're all just people," this assertion, after hundreds of pages of rhetorical questioning, feels trite and dismissive. In my opinion conflating rape with working motherhood by even using the same question of “monster” is absurd and harmful. She states late in the book that she has come to the personal conclusion that “we’re all just people” which after 200+ pages of rhetorical questioning feels lazy and dismissive of the point we are getting after.

I felt this book to be a bit self-serving, simply a platform on which Dederer could air out her personal moral quandaries rather than a comprehensive exploration of ethical consumptions. While it raises thought-provoking questions, it fell short for me. It was a lot to read just to come to the author’s conclusion of “no ethical consumption under capitalism”.