If you have a narcissistic or self-absorbed parent or parents and haven't yet recognized they're not ever going to change, haven't thought about how your early experiences with them impact you, and intend to continue your relationship with them, this book might be a good starting point for some exercises and coping skills. Having already done a lot of therapy around this I found this book frustrating in a few ways. First off, it's short and high-level even though more detail could've helped several sections. For example in the chapter "Difficult Strategies and How to Cope" there are some tips for how to react in a situation of conflict with your parent, but then in the sub-section on unreasonable requests and intrusive questions it outlines the dynamic without offering any concrete suggestions.

Second, about 1/3 of the book is dedicated to ridding yourself of your own self-absorbed tendencies and building a "better self" who volunteers and such. While it's true that ultimately we can control ourselves but not our parents, the tone of the book is direct and lacking in compassion/empathy for the readers. This is an issue throughout. There is little real insight on why some parents behave like this, presumably because the author doesn't feel that it's productive, and she only gives cursory acknowledgement to how children of self-absorbed parents feel in difficult situations. It felt more like a user manual with simplistic checklists and collaging exercises than a sophisticated look at complex family dynamics.