Rating: 
Summary: best book
Review:
In the novel eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen is sent away to a psychiatric hospital. At the hospital she meets girls that are also going through psychiatric problems. It is scary to read about the conditions the girls had to live in and how they were treated. It is also interesting to read about the relationships and personalities of the girls with their illnesses.
Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The book really portrays Susanna's diagnosis and explains her symptoms. One of Susanna's symptoms is self-mutilation. For example, she would bang her wrist on the metal part of a chair.
This book is even more fascinating because the book is based upon Susanna's own life experiences. She explains the difference between mind and brain. She also shows the hardships of getting a job when employers know you are from a psychiatric hospital. I think the book questions what is to be considered "mentally insane" and "normal". In the end Susanna describes her perception of life with a painting which she sees in a museum where a girl sits in an imperfect world.
I think this book was hard to read but was interesting. It gives you a real understanding of the life and thoughts of a person with a mental illness and the hardships that they have to endure.
Rating: 
Summary: Madness Takes Its Toll-Please Use Exact Change
Review: As with most movies, there is a good book lurking somewhere in its past. And "Girl, Interrupted", is no exception. Author and central character of this mesmerizing memoir, Susanna Kaysen, gives us a well defined exacting profile of near madness.Tweny-five years after placing herself under the watchful eyes of her "keepers" at Mc Lean Hospital for psychiatric treatment, Kaysen reveals her two year stay in the teenage ward back in the late 60's. A time itself of diagnosed disturbance. Richly portrayed characterzations of her fellow "inmates" and their doctors vividly depict everything from suicide, medications, the meaning of a crazed life, and harrowing journies to recovery. I truly enjoyed this 168 page book. Possibly more so due to the fact that I, myself, can say--"been there, done that, bought the T-shirt." And agree, the interruption is not my life, it just may be those mannerless people around me. Thank you for your interest & comments--CDS
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Must Read!
Review: I excitedly saw the movie, and fell in love! It's about a teenage girl [susanna kaysen] who is diagnosed with borderline personalit, which even she doesn't exactly understand. So when she is sent to a hospital, she describes everything very detailed. Her life there, her aspects, and her views on almost everything. She tells you her complex theries and opinions. So, when my school assigned us to write a book review, I immediately decided on Girl Interrupted. I axiously bought the book, and began to read through it. I was shocked that the book was written without the sense of outgoingness, and was in a way disappointed that the character (susanna) wasn't as wild and extreme. Even so, I find the book to be eloquently written. I got confused at first, but after a while, I got used to it. There are confusing parts, but it made me think, and I was able to make an educated guess. The language isn't that exciting, but I still love the book, and can't wait to read it again! I do recommend to read the book first, and then see the movie. It will help you to understsand the book better, because the movie keeps on getting me confused with the book. Please, read it and give it a chance. I am very attached to this book, and am sure you will be to!
Rating:
Summary: IF YOU'VE SEEN THE MOVIE YOU SHOULD READ THIS!!
Review: I read the book after I'd seen the movie and was disappointed in the movie. It left a lot of things out, added some stuff and really obscured the timeline.
The book however was captivating, I really had a hard time putting it down, and it's a very easy read. I enjoyed delving more into Susannna's mind learing what she was thinking during certain events in her life. It also puts a light onto early psychological techniques, which thank God have improved. One of my favorite parts in the book is were she starts to see her hand withouth bones, something that was mentioned shortly in the movie. The characters are thoroughtly mentioned in the book and even some you didn't seen in the movie, the funny thing is that Lisa the Angelina Joeli character didn't seem to play as big of a role in Susanna's life there. The movie seemed to focus maybe too much on the character since she was the more practical Hollywood mold, while the book of course is focused on Susanna.
Anyway, it was a fun book to read and an easy one too, if you liked the movie you should read the book to learn more about what really happened to Susanna during her stay at the hospital.
Rating: 
Summary: I liked the movie better
Review: I watched the movie before I read the book, so maybe after watching the movie and seeing everything close up in visual detail, I was disappointed by the book's lack of detail. Sure it had it's moments and cute tales especially about Daisy and her chickens, Lisa and her escapades, and the whole group going to the ice cream palor, but what it didn't have was the complete package that the movie presented to the viewer. Instead of reading the emotional turmoil of the girls in the minimum security ward, you actually witnessed it, and I found that much more compelling. However, I really enjoyed the chapter "Mind vs. Brain", in which the author describes in humorous detail the difference between a sane and an insane person. Watch the movie, and skip the book.
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Summary: what it is like to be in a mental hospital
Review: In the late 1960s, the author of this book spent about two years on the ward for teenage girls at McLean Hospital, a renowned psychiatric hospital. She was diagnosed with a mental illness, "borderline personality" disorder and depression. Her first psychologist sent her there after trying to kill herself with a bottle of aspirin and a bottle of vodka. When she got to the hospital and checked herself in she met some of the patients she would be living with in her ward. She roomed with a girl named Georgina who went crazy and was a pathological liar. Other girls she got to know was Polly who lit herself on fire and the most influential girl she met was Lisa, she was clinically a psycho but loved challenges and escaping, she loved her freedom. Every time they would catch Lisa after leaving they would give her shock treatment. The girls were parentally damaged from the word "checks" and would do almost anything to have sexual relations. They were not allowed to have anything sharp so the girls would rarely allowed to shave unless a nurse watched them like a hawk to make sure they were using the blade correctly. This book had dark humor and a page to page insight on what is it like to be in a hospital.
The book was about the author. She grew up in New York in the 1960s and had a bright life and had potential to go far until this incident happened. I think by far this book was one of the weirdest made you think kind of book I have ever read. I would defiantly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Girl Interrupted
Review: Many novels that are written have a happy ending. In the book Girl, Interrupted, this is not the case. This memoir, written by Susanna Keysen, is the darkly humorous story of an 18 yr old girl trapped within a mental institution. She introduces characters that come and go in her boxed life and explains their history, along with an analysis of each. While out of order and slightly confusing at certain points, the book quickly straightens out and gives it a more personal feeling and being like thoughts, not a textbook.
After seeing a new doctor for only 20 minutes, Susanna becomes committed by him to a mental institution. She becomes friends with Polly, a girl who had covered herself in gasoline and lit herself on fire, Lisa, the insomniac who is desperate for escape, no matter how poorly she could handle the 'real world', and Daisy, a beautiful bullimic girl who gets full chickens from her dad and keeps every carcass. Among these girls, Susanna desperately searches for sanity, knowing that she was not meant to be kept locked up here.
Keysen uses simple, straight forward words that can not be misunderstood. This helps us easily understand the moods that each passage is supposed to give off because each word has more value and impact. Along with this, she uses short sentences that are to the point. In the book, there are no hidden meanings behind her words; what she wants you to know, she tells you instead of letting the reader figure it out for themselves. An example of this is how on the first page, Keysen asks her roomate about undergoing shock therapy.
"And then what?" I asked.
"Darkness," She replied.
This quote, in few words, captures the eerie darkness of the conversation. This is something Keysen does phenomonally throughout the book. The more you read, the more you can comprehend about her, and you learn what to expect language-wise from her. The diction seems to come out just as an ordinary person would speak, allowing you to connect better with the character because all the answers about what she means is laid out right in front of you.
This book would be best recommended for women over the age of 13. The book talks about psychoanalysis and requires a certain amount of maturity to understand the nature and importance of the book. Also, this book can be recommended for those who have a dark sense of humor or like morbid books. The book describes all the disorders that each of them have and has the ability to make some of them seem comical. If you enjoyed the movie Girl, Interrupted, they will most likely enjoy reading the book, also. Two similar books are White Oleander and She's Come Undone. While White Oleander has a similar writing sense and inner conflict within the character, She's Come Undone revolves around similar ideas.
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Summary: A journey of the emotions, not of the intellect
Review: One of the previous reviews said, "differentiate between shallow-reader and shallow-writing." This is exactly the case. Ms. Kaysen's book put a lot of things into perspective and even put into words many of the same thoughts I've had but couldn't express. How does one express that everything within is moving at such a slow pace that it can actually be sensed on a cellular level? Ms. Kaysen did that. Some emotions even intellect cannot properly convey. Yet Ms. Kaysen managed to do it. One criticism that I read said that it wasn't very informative about borderline personality disorder. It wasn't supposed to be. It's her story. She didn't know much about borderline personality disorder when she was diagnosed with it. Immature writing? A teenager's book? It was written from memories of being 18. It couldn't work written as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray or Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. It has a style all its own. A style that is simplistic on the surface, but complex and diverse underneath the skin of it. It connects on a level deeper than literary merit, and that is what draws people into it. If it's read it as one would read a classic, delving into the literary conventions of it, then it will probably be disappointing. But if it's read it with one's emotions, it'll be one to cherish forever. I found it to be an amazing book... when I wasn't laughing, I was crying because I found a part of myself in it. My sincere gratitude to Ms. Kaysen for her work and for sharing it with her readers.
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Summary: Understanding a Mental Illness
Review: Right from the beginning of Girl, Interrupted the author introduces herself as an eighteen-year-old named Susanna Kaysen. She encounters a session with a psychiatrist she's never met or spoken to before in her life. The beginning of the book is thrilling and exciting because you're not exactly sure where you're going to end up. Susanna is then sent away in a taxi, which takes her to McLean Hospital. It becomes very real and clear about what is going on if you've had similar experiences in life. She stays in a ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital for the next two years of her life. By this point you really feel like you're right there with the writer. It all becomes very real and a little hard to read. This memoir of Kaysen includes horrible things that go on in the ward and at the same time she gives the readers a very clear description about the other patients in there. In the end the book brings you to a conclusion between mental illness and recovery. This book really showed me that life isn't as bad as I perceived it. I learned that when you think you've got it bad, you might not really know what you've got coming for you-because as you get older the real world can sometimes catch up with you.
I would recommend this book to anyone that is struggling with a friend or family member that has a mental illness. It helps you to understand what pain they're going through and why they say and think the way they do. This was by far one of my favorite books I've read this year and at the same time it was my biggest life saver.
Rating:
Summary: Girl Interrupted
Review: Set in a psychiatric hospital in 1967, the story is told by 18-year-old Susanna, who is dealing with depression and spending her days in McLean Hospital near Boston. We learn about the hospital and all the different patients through her eyes, while trying to understand her mental illness. First there was the suicide attempt, a halfhearted one because Kaysen made a phone call before popping 50 aspirins, leaving enough time to pump out her stomach. The next year it was McLean, which she entered after one session with a bullying doctor, a total stranger. Still, she signed herself in: "Reality was getting too dense...all my integrity seemed to lie in saying No."
I like this book a lot. I'm not a big reader, but when I do get into a book it's usually a biography or something that could really happen in life. This book shows mental illness from a point of view you wouldn't normally expect to see it from unless you experienced it yourself. For such a serious subject, I personally think it's told in a very playful way, almost sarcastically. But it's what happened to Kaysen, so considering she did a very good job of not making it boring there was always something going on. It also shows you how things were dealt with back in the late 60's. And how they are dealt with so differently know. It really makes you look at life in a different way. It really helps you to think about your life and choices you have to make. It makes you goes deep into your heart and mind.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes to read about real life situations. If you like to read a book with a lot of opinion, this is a good one. I really liked Girl Interrupted. It taught me a lot about how life is, and how you have to take it as it comes at you.
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