I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Rating:
Summary: A moving story
Review: This is an engaging, insightful story. It's hard not to identify with our young heroine, regardless of whether you're afflicted with mental illness or not. One of the main messages I gleaned from it is that medication may not be the answer for everyone, and the relationship with one's doctor is critical for proper healing....

Rating:
Summary: I never promised you...
Review: When all of you kids thought this book is so touching, loving and all that, let me tell you a even more touching one. How's that? I didn't pick the book up at the library, nor at school, nor out of some curosity. I read this book, page by page for a girl I love. For the sake of her, for she's asked by her parent to do high school project for her sister, and for her frustration, I read the book and just did the project. It really makes me wonder when it comes a time when kids don't do hwk and the parents demand their big sisters to do it. KIDS WILL YOU EVER GROW UP AND DO SOMETHING FOR ONCE? I guess they are still in their Yr world and playing pokemon and thinking that something there would be a god to save them. Learn to take some responsibility P L E A S E ?

Okay, I have made my review heard. Clap if you can, Curse if you want. I never promised you a rose garden !

Rating:
Summary: loved it
Review: I read it many times as a teenager. It's good writing and a very simple story about a girl's struggle to find the strength and sanity to face the challenges of the everyday world. I like it, because it's not melodramatic or mushy--it's simply about people relating to each other as people, insanity or no insanity.

Rating:
Summary: drama
Review: Basically this is the story of Deborah and her melodramatic soap opera through mental illness. Actually, if it weren't for the hallucinations, I'd doubt that it was mental illness and not just the consequences for a woman constricted in the 40's. That would be a whole nother story though, a story called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Iether way, I give this book 2 undesserving stars (I was torn between iether 1 or 2 stars) b/c it is BORING...
Miss Joanne Green can't write a lick. It's over over-dramatic, there is -1 to 0 % humor of any kind, it's a very stiff book, (unless you personally find anything funny specifically).
It's long and unnecesarry. What I mean by that is, say Deborah walks into a room: there's a paragraph for each and every piece in that room about how it relates to her illness, what it makes her think of, so on, I'm not even kidding. That's basically the whole book: psycho-analyzing simple objects and how they relate to her illness.
If that's your thing, fine, but be forewarned: you are reading an overdramatised soap opera with as much humor in it as 9-11.
And a sence of humor is very important.
I'm not comparing, but just for the record, Cuckoo's Nest, Girl, Interrupted, even The Bell Jar all had sprinkle of funniness in them.

Rating:
Summary: very real, no frills
Review: this story is told in a very believable way. you actually get into the head of a schizophrenic girl as the author write about Deborah's world. there is no propaganda or pitches for sympathy, no "sensational drama" to exaggerate things, no melodrama. just real stuff, feelings, experiences. honest. i identified with Deborah a lot. its awesome, the story is an artfully told progression from intense sickness and submersion in an unreal world to a gradual scary world of hopefulness. awesome. READ IT!

Rating:
Summary: A young girl in her own world
Review: In the book "I never promised you a rose garden" there was a girl named Deborah Blau. She was sixteen years old when the book begins and she is sent to a mental hospital. Her parents are loving and caring but don't understand her. Since the age of about nine Deborah has been different from everyone else. Incapable of making friends, bitter, very sarcastic and apathetic. She grows up this way without anyone noticing really except her mother, Esther Blau. Esther always assumed that her daughter was unique but not sick. It never occurred to her that he daughter lived in her own world the majority of her childhood.

At the hospital Deborah sees Dr. Fried, a very qualified psychiatrist. Together,Dr. Fried and Deborah uncover a lot of her childhood and what made her dreamworld,Yr come to be. In between visits with the Dr. she makes a friend by the name of Carla and stays friends with her over the 3 years of her treatment. She transfers from different levels of the ward and meets new people learning new things about her sickness and the other patients.

Reading this book for me has been a pleasure. It has taken me deeper inside my own mind and has pushed me further in my desire to become a psychiatrist. I loved the book, it really shows how all people aren't bad. Deborah mainly taught me just that. Everyone in the world isn't out to hurt you and that a little trust can go a long way. This book is inspiring to me and maybe others who have read it to help those people like Deborah who just don't know how to ask for help and really need it.

Rating:
Summary: A young girl in her own world
Review: ...Reading this book for me has been a pleasure. It has taken me deeper inside my own mind and has pushed me further in my desire to become a psychiatrist. I loved the book, it really shows how all people aren't bad. Deborah mainly taught me just that. Everyone in the world isn't out to hurt you and that a little trust can go a long way. This book is inspiring to me and maybe others who have read it to help those people like Deborah who just don't know how to ask for help and really need it.

Rating:
Summary: Bad and Boring
Review: This book was so confusing and boring. It starts out with a girl and her parents driving to a mental hospital. When they get there the parents leave to go home and every other paragraph changes the setting. In one paragraph it would be Debrah (the girl)talking to the doctors at the mental hospital and then the next one is her parents at home talking about her. I didn't really understand the whole concept about the story. All it kept saying was stuff about how she never got along with the kids in her school and how she wanted to kill herself by slitting her wrists. It was supposed to be taking place during World War 2 when Hitler was trying to take over Germany but they were talking and acting like it was the future. They used words like "probe" which you wouldn't hear very often in those days. I dont think I would recommend this story to anyone else because out of the 5 people in my class that read it, none of them liked it or understood it enough to tell anyone about it. It had to be one of the worst books I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Could Have Been Better
Review: I spoke to many people who spoke highly of this book so I decided to read it. While it is a well written book, there were times when it was hard to follow. There were many places in this book the story line could have been enhanced through details.
Overall I am glad I read this book & I enjoyed the story. I will recommend it to others but it is not one of the best books I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but only one problem
Review: I'm 14 and I myself suffer from schizophrenia so I decided to read this book about a young girl suffering with her own world of unreality. Honestly, this is one of the best books I have ever read. The writing is crisp and so beautiful. I love the way she descirbes Debroah's sufering. The only problem I have with this book is that Deborah shouldn't have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, she should instead of been diagnosed with hysteria. Still, an excellent read and will always remain one of my favourite books.