Girl, Interrupted (Faber and Faber Screenplays)

Rating:
Summary: Girl, Interrupted at Her Music
Review: This is one of my favorite books of all time - if you're even *considering* buying this book, please do it! If you're a fan of The Bell Jar, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden or other books dealing with psychology, you'll love it.

Girl, Interrupted will made me laugh, cry, and feel everything between! Delving into the mind of Susanna Kayson, she describes in her memoir what it was like to live in Belmont - an expensive mental hospital - for almost two years during the 60's. Each character is so unique and engrossing, I wasn't able to put the book down. Now, even though I've read it so many times that the spine is wearing out, I still can't put it down once I stop! You'll love this book to death - and knowing that it's a true story makes it that much more facsinating.

Rating:
Summary: A Moving and Honest Portrait of Mental Illness
Review: This slim memoir of a college student who suffers a "breakdown" honestly explores the details of mental illness, specifically "borderline personality" disorders. The account starts in a cold, almost frightening way: the first page is a copy of author Kaysen's case record folder. The reader then is given a fleeting description of the quiet moments leading up to Kaysen's lengthy hospitalization, and then is shown more official documents. This juxtaposition of the clinical with the personal highlights exactly what this memoir aims to express, that the darkness of mental disease has a face, a voice, that can be hidden by labels and diagnoses.

Kaysen's difficult and often terrifying journey - from the ordinary daughter of two achieving parents to a patient at a psychiatric hospital to, tentatively, a recovered young woman - is at once moving and beautiful. Even when the author asks questions that many before her have asked, she makes them seem fresh: "What is it about meter and cadence and rhythm that makes their makers mad?" She explores her illness at its most intimate moments and often follows her breaks with reality with detached physician reports, giving the reader both inside and outside perspectives. Through her interactions with other patients, Kaysen makes it clear that not everyone is as fortunate as she, since some cannot extricate themselves from their illness. Interestingly, despite once not believing that she really had bones inside her, Kaysen is not convinced she was mentally ill; if nothing else, this questions the internal changes we've been taught to accept as part of the onset of mental illness.

This book should not be read by anyone believing she is slipping toward insanity, but it might be a comfort to those who have already emerged. Kaysen is at once ordinary and gifted despite this turbulent part of her life. More importantly, this book should be read by the loved ones of those in distress, for it gives a human dimension to what is often ostracized. Understanding the thought processes of at least one stricken young women goes a long way to having compassion for and understanding others.