Girl Interrupted

Rating:
Summary: Not a Good Representation of Illiness
Review: It took every ounce of strength and the hope that with the next frame the movie adaptation would improve. Sometimes the written word should be left as such. And in no way did it have the power nor the intensity of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." More along the lines of a Woody Allen spoof.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe we all walk the edge of sanity?
Review: This book is a wonderful example of how close we all teeter between the land of sanity and insanity. Many of the feelings she expressed felt real to me, authentic. Many days I struggle to get out of bed because of depression and I know that if I choose, I can stay in bed, ignoring the world around me and disappear from life forever, or I can get up and struggle to make it through another day. Susanna was too happy to give up the control of living her own life. She makes the conscious effort to climb from the depths of her own destruction. I just rented the movie and enjoyed it so much that I am going to start re-reading the book tonight!

Rating:
Summary: Quite good
Review: A sad, yet very funny book. A very authentic picture of mental illness (not that I REALLY know though). There are a couple of chapters near the end that are tempting to skip. They have nothing to do with the storyline and are really an in-depth pschyological analysis of mental illness.

Rating:
Summary: One of my Favs
Review: Gosh i must have read this book in one day i mean its just such an original and well put book about Susanna Kaysen and what she went through in an mental institution. Its just a fascinatng book i really couldnt put it down i just really ate it up. I mean the way Susanna captures the institution and all her friends is really put in a way that i cant really describe. Its just a wonderful book and also the movie is pretty good too.

Rating:
Summary: Seemed a bit rambling
Review: Seemed like the book was rambling. Didn't really see the point. Was interresting for someone who didn't already know what it was like inside of an 'insane' assylm. Would have like more info on what really went on though.

Rating:
Summary: xenapink
Review: that' really a book that i wanna have.

Rating:
Summary: Girl, Overrated
Review: Upon reading the back cover of this book, I was expecting a nonfiction answer to One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest; I found that book and its message so riveting that I pursued (and obtained) a psychology degree. Instead, I got the uninspired account of Susanna Kaysen's stay in a glorified boarding school for nonconformist scions of upper-middle-class homes. Thirty years of life in the "real world" have not given Ms. Kaysen much introspection or perspective on the world around her; Girl, Interrupted reads more like the brainchild of a disturbed yet sheltered 18-year-old than the memoir of someone who has been to hell and back. While Ms. Kaysen alludes to the rampant sexism of 1960s America, the efforts to stop a burgeoning counterculture, and the endemic trendiness of modern psychiatry, her observations are underdeveloped or enshrouded in the fog of time and psychotropic medication. Perhaps because she is little more than a "poor little rich girl" who failed to thrive, or perhaps because she truly suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, Ms. Kaysen does not seem to sympathize or empathize with anyone she portrays in this book. The life of the one character whose problems are more severe than not fitting in with the Cos Cob crowd is treated as an amusing anecdote; others are reduced to quips and quirks. I could go on, but why bother? I found Girl, Interrupted to be as overrated as it was underwhelming.

Rating:
Summary: Yep, she's crazy all right.
Review: Read it to as an initiation to an all men's book club. Found some part very interesting, like analysis based on the type of car you drive. Explains a lot about some folks I know.

Rating:
Summary: Girl Interrupted is great
Review: I loved "Girl Interrupted." I think the characterization of everything and everyone was very accurate. The way things were in institutions in the 1960's isn't much different from today. And I know firsthand. If anyone ever dared to wonder about life in the "parallel universe," then I strongly suggest reading this book with an open mind and an open heart.

Rating:
Summary: What's the big deal?
Review: I bought this book because I thought it would provide some insight into the world of mental illness. I was sorely disappointed.