Rating: 
Summary: A clarification of a life
Review: Interesting positive account of the 90s drug of choice, this personal, truthful journey out of madness is well worth the read. Although often overprescribed, Prozac obviously helped Lauren Slater function as she never before thought possible. With writing that is at times clumsy, often sporadic in its attempts at poetry, Lauren Slater reaches for heights many less honest writers never attempt. An important, entertaining and informative work that deserves attention.
Rating: 
Summary: I cried
Review: It's hard to imagine a world without Prozac, but let's give it a shot. When you get to college and you're still feeling sorry for yourself after listening to your entire barbra streisand collection and some half baked burnout from the sixties introduces you to kant and hume having only read the cliff's notes himself, then yeah, that can be depressing. Everyone hears voices. That's your inner self telling you to get off your ass. When you can only function in our society because you're heavily medicated, then maybe it's time you thought about removing yourself from society. The medicine may dry up some day, then we'll all have to pay for the consequences.
Rating: 
Summary: A different view, but not for everyone...
Review: Last night, I finished the book Prozac Diary by Lauren Slater. Since I started taking fluoxetine (generic form of Prozac) a few months ago for dysthymia, I figured it would be interesting to read of some experiences of others who have used the drug. Slater was one of the first to start using Prozac in 1988 and talks about her 10 year "relationship" with the drug. She had some serious mental disturbances, and taking Prozac was yet another attempt to deal with them. She chronicles the changes in her personality, the highs and lows of those changes, and how she dealt with the effect called "Prozac poop-out" when the drug ceases to work after an extended period of time. On the positive side, she went on to become an accomplished psychologist after being a drifter for the first part of her life. On the down side, she still struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCP) and feels that in some ways the Prozac has suppressed a number of internal parts of her personality. For me, I couldn't relate to much of what the author wrote. For one, there's a vast difference between low-level depression (dysthymia) and OCP/self-mutilation. I could go back to my "old" self and function ok. I just don't want to... :-) She can't. Also, her style of writing is very "artistic" for lack of a better term. Readers who are in touch with emotional writing will relate, but those looking for a clinical examination and discussion won't find it here. If you look deep enough, you can see some themes that might make sense (Prozac as a personality/intellectual "steroid"), but for me the writing gets in the way of that. If you struggle with Prozac, this might be a good read for you in order to get a different viewpoint. Just don't judge all Prozac users by this book.
Rating:
Summary: A different view, but not for everyone...
Review: Last night, I finished the book Prozac Diary by Lauren Slater. Since I started taking fluoxetine (generic form of Prozac) a few months ago for dysthymia, I figured it would be interesting to read of some experiences of others who have used the drug. Slater was one of the first to start using Prozac in 1988 and talks about her 10 year "relationship" with the drug. She had some serious mental disturbances, and taking Prozac was yet another attempt to deal with them. She chronicles the changes in her personality, the highs and lows of those changes, and how she dealt with the effect called "Prozac poop-out" when the drug ceases to work after an extended period of time. On the positive side, she went on to become an accomplished psychologist after being a drifter for the first part of her life. On the down side, she still struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCP) and feels that in some ways the Prozac has suppressed a number of internal parts of her personality. For me, I couldn't relate to much of what the author wrote. For one, there's a vast difference between low-level depression (dysthymia) and OCP/self-mutilation. I could go back to my "old" self and function ok. I just don't want to... :-) She can't. Also, her style of writing is very "artistic" for lack of a better term. Readers who are in touch with emotional writing will relate, but those looking for a clinical examination and discussion won't find it here. If you look deep enough, you can see some themes that might make sense (Prozac as a personality/intellectual "steroid"), but for me the writing gets in the way of that. If you struggle with Prozac, this might be a good read for you in order to get a different viewpoint. Just don't judge all Prozac users by this book.
Rating:
Summary: Y ou cant have your cake and eat it too.
Review: Lauren Slater is a gifted writer. Prozak Diary is a rich girls tale of prozac with a somewhat successful ending, but Slater battles with the dependent aspects of the drug. We are all dependent on something in life and she is not different. Slater is now a productive human being and is not afraid of displaying her quite admirable talent in this book. I say hooray for Eli Lilly, because if this were the dark ages honey...youd be in trouble. If you are curious but not crippled enough to be able to take prozac, Ms Slater will take you through the journey. It is somewhat strange that the word"suffering" hardly shows its face...being that it is surely a part of humanness and life.
Rating:
Summary: Mesmerizing
Review: Lauren Slater writes with a hypnotic brilliance. She's one of those writers who can make any subject fascinating, and this one is particularly interesting to begin with: How much is our personality--our soul--a product of sheer biochemistry? I really loved this book. Snatches of it stayed with me for days.
Rating:
Summary: effective, honest, scary
Review: Lauren Slater's 1999 memoir Prozac Diary is a worthy addition to the "women and madness" genre or for the millions currently taking antidepressants. What makes Slater's book a standout, though, is that it's the experience of one of the first people to use Prozac for depression. Slater writes her diary ten years after she first started taking the drug regularly in 1988, so we get to read of the long-term affects of daily dosing and how the drug changed her life over time. What was most interesting about Slater's story is how she had to learn to live life as a no-longer-depressed person. Her entire life, depression and its consequences dominated her life, gave her life meaning and routine, and defined who she was. When the "Zac" started working, she struggled to develop a new sense of herself, separate and apart from the depressed Lauren. For me, the problem was that there wasn't enough experience there; something felt missing from the story. Perhaps it was the editor's fault. Or maybe my expectations were incorrect from the start. Slater's history is briefly given: lifelong struggles with depression and other forms of mental illness, a history of hospitalizations and attempts at various therapies, none of which were successful until Prozac in 1988. Perhaps I wanted to know more or I wanted the story to be told in a different style. I can't put my finger on it, but for this reader there was just something missing. Slater's writing style is poetic, but it was sometimes a distraction. I highly recommend the book to those interested in antidepressants for any reason, whether it's history of Prozac's rise to prominence (what some call the aspirin of our age), how it affects people over the short and long-term, or simple voyeurism into the mind and life of someone classified as mentally ill. Lauren Slater truly benefited from this drug, and while many people think Prozac is tossed around too freely these days, she is an excellent example of whom this drug was originally developed for. It's staggering and sad to think how many lives could have been saved if we'd had this drug fifty years ago. Prozac Diary is a slim read that can be devoured in one day by the voracious reader. Definitely worth the time for those of us living in this Age of Anxiety.
Rating:
Summary: A Worthy Addition To The Genre
Review: Lauren Slater's 1999 memoir Prozac Diary is a worthy addition to the "women and madness" genre or for the millions currently taking antidepressants. What makes Slater's book a standout, though, is that it's the experience of one of the first people to use Prozac for depression. Slater writes her diary ten years after she first started taking the drug regularly in 1988, so we get to read of the long-term affects of daily dosing and how the drug changed her life over time. What was most interesting about Slater's story is how she had to learn to live life as a no-longer-depressed person. Her entire life, depression and its consequences dominated her life, gave her life meaning and routine, and defined who she was. When the "Zac" started working, she struggled to develop a new sense of herself, separate and apart from the depressed Lauren. For me, the problem was that there wasn't enough experience there; something felt missing from the story. Perhaps it was the editor's fault. Or maybe my expectations were incorrect from the start. Slater's history is briefly given: lifelong struggles with depression and other forms of mental illness, a history of hospitalizations and attempts at various therapies, none of which were successful until Prozac in 1988. Perhaps I wanted to know more or I wanted the story to be told in a different style. I can't put my finger on it, but for this reader there was just something missing. Slater's writing style is poetic, but it was sometimes a distraction. I highly recommend the book to those interested in antidepressants for any reason, whether it's history of Prozac's rise to prominence (what some call the aspirin of our age), how it affects people over the short and long-term, or simple voyeurism into the mind and life of someone classified as mentally ill. Lauren Slater truly benefited from this drug, and while many people think Prozac is tossed around too freely these days, she is an excellent example of whom this drug was originally developed for. It's staggering and sad to think how many lives could have been saved if we'd had this drug fifty years ago. Prozac Diary is a slim read that can be devoured in one day by the voracious reader. Definitely worth the time for those of us living in this Age of Anxiety.
Rating:
Summary: A Story of Cure
Review: Lauren Slater's memoir begins with her recounting a drive up to McLean Hospital. She is going there to see a psychiatrist in a last-ditch effort to find a medication which would relieve her of a myriad of symptoms, including depression, suicide attempts, self-mutilation, anorexia, anxiety, disassociative illnesses, and most recently, obsessive-compulsive disorder. She elucidates for us the fear she felt when she returned home and was confronted with a small green-and-white capsule which would supposedly correct whatever sinaptical imbalance existed in her brain. Miraculously, she is able to tell us a story of how one day she woke up and simply felt happy to be alive, no longer caring about her obsessions and calorie-counting, no longer wanting to live with the mundane routine of illness. She tells us of emerging at the age of twenty-six from a basement apartment, unemployment, and most of all an unfeeling, friendless existence, which she had spent most of her life in. Slater gives us a few glimpses, but never a full-fledged portrait of what her illness was like. By the end of the story, I was unsure whether she had spent her last years of childhood in foster-care and/or if her parents had divorced. She is a very good writer and is able to draw you into her life as she begins to make friends, go to graduate school, and just have fun for the first time in her life. However, Slater warns us that her life is not "A Rose Garden". She recounts for us a period of time in which her miracle pill stopped working (The Prozac Poop-out), as well as her chronic disinterest in sex and curiously lapsing memory. Ultimately, it is the story of what it means to be cured by something you cannot fully understand (the Prozac), while trying to find the willpower to press on and find an identity outside of one's ailments, and be a part of your own recovery. I liked this book because it, unlike many mental illness memoirs, did not focus on the illness but on the recovery. At times though, it did seem a bit dull to hear about Slater's various enlightening experiences as she rejoined life. There are also very few developed characters other than Slater herself. I think the book would have been more powerful if Slater had given us a chronicle of her illness so the reader could see what she was recovering from. However, that would have defeated the purpose of its being about cure. Overall, this is an optimistic book and a very important resource for anyone who is struggling with depression or considering taking a psychotropic drug.
Rating:
Summary: Good-enough diary of a long-time prozac patient
Review: On a whole, Slater's work is a well-written description of her struggle with mental illness and the relief provided by prozac. She provides an excellent thumbnail summary of Peter Kramer's thesis in Listening to Prozac (itself a superb book) as it relates to her own experience. This is not a memoir that rehearses every injury, every grief, every small sorrow that has piled up to tip her into unhealthiness; it is instead a series of brief but salient vignettes that reveal just enough about the author's past to give us an understanding and appreciation for the background of her pain. This content is subtle and understated. Parenthetically, it also reveals the multigenerational impact of the Holocaust on mental health. My one complaint about the book is that the prose can obscure the content at times. It can become too thick, too full of colorful or metaphoric language, and thus becomes tiresome. I found myself being impatient and irritated with the distraction, like an otherwise excellent dish that had been over-salted. I must admit to being somewhat mystified at the hostility expressed in some of the other reviews. This book did not present itself as a self-help book or a practical manual on the pharmacology of selective seritonin reuptake inhibitors. It is an account of one person's experience with a remarkable medication - a personal and very individual history. While some may not identify with her experiences, others (including myself) may.
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