Girl, Interrupted

Rating:
Summary: Frighteningly resonant of my own Interruptions
Review: The style - depersonalised, disjointed, detatched - conveys volumes greater than the words themselves. Too many authors glamorise their experiences of mental distress. Susanna Kaysen describes the truth, the hell ...

Rating:
Summary: good in some points, fuzzy in others
Review: I'm left feeling like I've only been told part of her story, and while the part she told was often quite good, the part I feel the book lacks strikes me as even more important, and I feel she got fuzzy when she approached it

Good points: interesting, witty, clear portrayal of life inside a mental institution and inside the head of a mental patient; she very clearly delineates the different characters, each has an obvious and unique personality and their interactions are interesting; also, shows how vicious and unhealthy and non-restorative mental health professionals and overall life on a ward can be

Bad points: I felt the one character whose character was NOT nearly so well explained as the others or explored from a wide perspective was hers; it's like, she left that to all the diagnosing and hospital note pages, but she never seems to really hit on the core of who she is in the same way she characterizes everybody else. Also, I don't know why she didn't get into it, but she barely even touches upon her family issues, it's like, they're all but non-characters, and I think that's a major minus for the book.

Along these lines, by calling the book "Girl, Interrupted" and saying her "musical" life was interrupted at eighteen, it implies her life (which at that point was her family life) was okay and that she was really the victim of the mental health field. Well, I would agree that she was the victim of the mental health field, but I would say they were actually the secondary victimizers - the real ones were her family, and by her not exploring that aspect in the slightest she simply lets them off the hook, and confuses the reader as to who's primarily at fault. Even a few clear paragraphs or pages of scenarios about the sick truth of her family (and don't tell me they're not!) would have improved this book immensely.

Finally: it strikes me that lacking the real oomph to explore her family issues and out them, kaysen turns the tone to a sort of semi-comedy, almost like she's making another futile protest against unlistening nurses and doctors.

Rating:
Summary: Girl, Interrupted nothing like movie
Review: I was a little disapointed to find out that the book was really nothing like the movie. Which goes to show that you should read the book before going to the movie. I kept thinking about the characters in the movie and trying to compare them in the book but once again the movie had great amounts of hollywood drama. The book was ok a bit confusing at times but otherwise it was an OK book I finished it in one day in that shows anything? Maybe I didnt like it so much because I was expecting different things.

Rating:
Summary: Pure honesty and intellect
Review: Sometimes, you come across a book that is unbelievably profound in its honesty and intelligence. Susanna Kaysen's Girl Interrupted is that book. Ms. Kaysen tells an enlightening story of the 18 months she spent in McLean Hospital, a mental institution, as the result of a failed suicide attempt in 1967. In the novel, Ms. Kaysen explores the physiological being and mind of the girls in her ward, including herself and poses interesting questions about who's crazy and who's in charge of figuring it out. Girl, Interrupted is a novel of stunning proportion. Kaysen's style of writing is electric and simple. The informality of the novel allows the reader to understand and identify with the characters, and the utter complexity of the plot allows for the mind to wonder. While the novel was riveting, Kaysen's lack of chronological order makes the novel a little hard to totally understand in one reading and the novel becomes a bit confusing. Kaysen shows mental patients in a new light, not as lunatics, but as real people with problems which people use to classify them as crazy. Girl, Interrupted teaches that inside everyone, there is insecurity and fear, which can really be used to classify anyone as crazy. If you look hard enough, you can see yourself, or something you want to be in each character. This book can help show a little something about human nature and humans in general. I'd definitely recommend Girl, Interrupted to teens from 13 up and to young adult in their early to mid 20s. Any younger than 13 and certain themes would have to be explained and any older than mid 20s and the novel's value would deteriorate because that age range would not be able to appreciate the lessons learned and the advice subtly cast though out the novel. The novel has a great deal of language and scenes some people may find disturbing. Girl, Interrupted is a fine novel, built with creativity.

Rating:
Summary: COMING OF AGE IN A PSYCHIATRIC WARD
Review: Who am I really, and where am I going? In this autobiographical memoir, the author seeks these answers for herself. After a while we start wondering also, as we view life through Susanna Kaysen's eyes, her unbalanced ward-mates and experience the inside machinations of a psychiatric ward. What is illusion? what is reality? The book is bizarre, yet engrossing. Yes, there is a strong resemblance to "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." After you finish reading this book, look at the "Girl Interrupted" film version starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie and Whoopie Goldberg. It is an equally powerful and entertaining representation of this young gifted, warped girl finding her true self and coming of age during 18 months in a hospital.

Rating:
Summary: Susanna Kaysen was indeed ill
Review: Susanna Kaysen's book was sparsely written - moving and emotionally stirring. The media has tried to portray her as a mixed up, misunderstood child of the Sixties, which is unfortunate. Susanna Kaysen was ill - Borderline Personality Disorder - is a character disorder and in her case a true diagnosis. She tried to commit suicide and experienced psychotic hallucinations. She's lucky they didn't give her a label of Schizophrenia - she'd still be hospitalized. It was common in those days to be misdiagnosed - she was lucky.

Rating:
Summary: Girl, Interrupted
Review: I just want to tell you all that this book, is one of the best books I have ever read. Susanna Kaysan is brillant! I really like her writing style. It really makes you think who the real insane people are. I would highly recommend reading this book if you like to be informed of what life can really be like. And you could get into the mind of a "crazy" person. Reading this book would not be a waste of time, it would probably be one of the best books you would ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Honest and humorous-an overall very well spent afternoon
Review: The book is a short and easy read of 168 pages (approx) with various photocopies of hospital forms inbetween the pages of medium sized text. It's a memoir about Susanna Kaysen's journey into a hostpial-a sychiatric hospital called McLean Hospital. And if I were to note that people such as Sylvia Plath and James Taylor were also clients at the same hospital it may interest you to see the colorful aray of incidents that happen at the hospital that although very serious, Ms. Kaysen seems to put in a highly amusing manner.
The book is at a level course of happenings and chapters even though it's set in a hospital that it makes you realise that the life inside the white walls of the hospital are practically the same as life in the outside world-just surprisingly more...safer and confined.

Susanna Kaysen has been able to put her words on paper so honestly and ingeniously that I'm sure that anyone with a spare afternoon will surely enjoy reading it as well as those who have a disorder of some sort (like myself) who will easily be able to see a whole new side of humor.
You want to know what I think honestly? This is one book you won't regret reading.

Rating:
Summary: An insightfull comment of mental disease and society
Review: Whether or not you believe that young Susanna Kaysen should have been in a mental hospital at age 18, you have to sympathize with how she feels about it. Society, as a whole, treats anyone with a mental "problem" as a freak and social leper. The book really shows how a normal, very nice human being, is seperated from the rest of the world and stamped as a "freak". Most of the second half of the book really concentrates on how other people unfairly lable anyone with a problem. People diagnosed with mental disorders end up seeing them as shamefull, because that's how society feels. That isn't true; it's a disease like any other, and the author really shows it and explains it. You can related in every way to Susanna and her friends, and the book really gets you thinking about who is crazy and who is "normal"?

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!