Rating:  Summary: Worth reading, but not outstanding. Review: Frequent comparisons to Plath notwithstanding, Wurtzel's writing lacks discipline--it's interesting reading, but with the depth one might expect from a ferociously intelligent 15-year-old. Still, this book succeeds by reminding the reader that while the cliche of the tortured artist is fine in theory, it's tiring, predictable, and ultimately boring in practice.
Rating:  Summary: POSER NATION Review: I really liked this book in the beginning but it got really horrible towards the middle and beyond. There are scenes about therapists trying to "save her" and she seems to delight in saying she's going to kill herself to anyone who will listen. All she does is tell people she is depressed and demand drugs to put in her a zombie state which she also seems to hate.Then her mother gets mugged and instead of thinking of her poor mother, she whines because for once, her mother NEEDS her help and support. Then she says her father abandoned her but he shows up in the book lots of times, only to be greeted with resentment and being pushed away because he isn't a good enough dad. She goes to England and lays in bed and cries and makes everyone around her miserable and refuses to have fun herself. She blames her relationships for problems but she drives her boyfriends away by being the next thing to a clingy stalker. Whine, Whine, Whine. It makes you depressed reading this. What is wrong with this spoiled little girl? She gets annoying very fast and you can't help but roll your eyes at her "seeking attention" suffering attempts by the time you get to page 300. She sounds like someone who wants people to believe she is deep and in suffering and in pain mainly because she obviously thinks it's a cool way to be. I don't know which book came out first but this book sounds alot like wasted, only this spoiled little rich girl is moping and moody instead of starving and purging and frankly, it reeks. It book should be called POSER NATION because she sounds like someone who is posing to be a depressed misunderstood girl/ the poetic writer engulfed in madness and mental illness when she clearly is not. She's a whiney little snot who's had too good and decides pretending to be sick is a good way to seem dark and get attention.
Rating:  Summary: AN ASININE READ! Review: Wurtzel hits the nail right on the head when she describes herself as (and I quote!) "...literally doing what people mean when they say, She went kicking and screaming." Her "work" resembles the infantile ranting and raving one might read in a spoiled pubescent girl's diary. Her themes are commonplace,and she lacks dept and insight in regards to depression. She is sadly nothing more than a cliche of the grunge generation. I would also like a refund!
Rating:  Summary: A great memoir. Review: It's a perfect mirror of a depressed young woman. Every page was like reading about my own life and feelings. It's amazing if you're interested in depression and emotional problems, etc. Although there are dozens of new anti-depressants prozac nation is great.
Rating:  Summary: I WANT MY MONEY BACK! Review: I've had depression for years and this is not a work on depression. It reads like an over emotional 14 year old girl's diary. If you want to put Wurtzel on a pedestal and worship her like a ranting & egocentric cry baby, then by all means, please see to it you organize a mass sucide or something. And take Wurtzel with you.
Rating:  Summary: A Great Book with lots to offer Review: I did enjoy reading Prozac Nation because I thought you got to see into Elizabeth's true feelings. By her detailing alot, besides the fact that this got people saying it was boring and dragged on, you really got to feel what she was feeling. Perhaps though the reason this book got three stars was that it wasn't anything special. I mean I read the whole thing and I really looked foward to opening the book, but it did possibly drag on too much. For people who are a tad bit deppressed though, this could give you some material, but also giving you some insight. So if you have free time, read it. It's a really good experience.
Rating:  Summary: Has potential but is way too repetitive and self pitying Review: To give credit where credit is due, Elizabeth Wurtzel can write amazing stuff. This book starts out very strongly, painting an honest and vivid picture of herself as a 12 year old girl sufferig from depression. Her writing feels so honest and the way she uses words to put forward her message is just amazing. Or at least, it is at first, anyway. The problem is that this book is way too repetitive. Its always "my depression this" and "my depression that", whilst telling the reader bland everyday teenage stuff like how her first boyfriend dumped her or how she and her college friend fell out, as if we didn't already feel sorry enough for her. I am a little frustrated. What started out (to me at least) as an incredible novel due to her style and honesty, degenerated into a mish-mash of uninteresting stories that served as nothing more than backdrops for her to wallow in self-pity. I really tried to like this more - to like it as much as I did when I first started it, but I couldn't even finish it, simply because I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over. Aparently, this is her first novel, so I will try some of her later work to see that her writing isn't wasted. It certainly isn't that can't write, its simpy that she needs something to write about. Her experience with depression is certainly something which I would want to read about, if only out of morbid curiosity, but it needs to be taken from different angles - in other words, not just an angle that deals with nothing other than repetitive self pity.
Rating:  Summary: Amazing memoir Review: This book has made me an avid Wurtzel fan. Prozac Nation isn't the typical dry memoir, that makes you think, "Why is this person so important, that he/she needs to write a book about him/herself?" Prozac Nation is gripping and a book you will not want to put down. Once I got to the end, I wished there were more. Prozac Nation allows those who never experienced depression, to develop a better understanding of it. Also, it explains that college life isn't always the days you love to look back on. This book is a definite must read.
Rating:  Summary: Accurate picture of life with depression. Review: Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir of her struggle with depression is poignant and true-to-life. Her description of the effort it takes to do something as simple as getting out of the bed in the morning will be familiar to anyone who has suffered from depression. Also accurate is Elizabeth's constant running away from her problems. Her trip to England and the difficulties she encounters there is a prime example of this running. Something that I had hoped would be included in this book is more sociological information. The book is called "Prozac Nation", and yet Wurtzel includes very little information about her generation and the depression-sufferers among them. In fact, the book doesn't even mention Prozac until the very end.
Rating:  Summary: Thought Provoking & Well Written Review: It feels very strange to admit to liking this book, as I don't think a memoir of someone who is severely depressed is, or should be, pleasant reading. It was well written, although incohesive at times, and I admit it was very interesting. At times it seemed that Wurtzel was going out of her way to dazzle us with her vast vocabulary. An example of that can be seen when she is driving around London with her friend Noah and they run into a nice couple about to travel to Israel, and Wurtzel gives them a note to put in Kotel and writes: "Noah, feeling ecumenical, scribbles something down something too." Her vocabulary is impressive, as is her use of language, but sometimes her choice of words grates on you, eclipsing the flow of the story and the ideas being expressed. Wurtzel states in the Afterword, written in 1995, that it was her intention that the reader feel angered at her selfishness and total and absolute disregard for anyone but herself, and she has definitely achieved this result. The book does make her seem to be a spoiled child, as she lays on the floor in bookstores and screams until she gets what she wants -- which is usually attention from a man or a reaction of sympathy from her mother or a motherly figure. She seems to be in love with her depression, describing the shape and colour of the pills she is prescribed as if they are works of art and worthy of admiration. She states that she enjoys seeing a therapist, because someone is listening to her and giving her all of their attention. This love story she has with her depression continues on, as even when she is on the verge of a breakthrough, she runs to various cities to delay facing it. The fact that this bright girl flees to London to escape her depression -- an interesting city, but not exactly a cheerful place for a sun-lover, such as Wurtzel -- is perhaps my favourite illustration of the fact that her depression had truly muddled her thinking to the point of delirium. The depressive mind is captured in this book, as Wurtzel intended. The reader is carried into her depression and shares the desperation to find some relief for her pain, and the reader feels great sympathy with those around her and can relate to the frustration those close to her her felt. She holds nothing back and lets the reader see herself at her worst, and for this and for the preciseness and depth of her expression of her depression, this book is worth reading.
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