Rating: 
Summary: Interesting if a little flawed
Review: In 1967, at the age of 18, Susanna Kaysen was admitted to a hospital for the mentally ill. She stayed there for a little under two years and this book is a series of essays about her time in the hospital.It is not a diary and there is little in the way of continuity from one part of the book to another but this book is about the experiences of hospitalisation rather than being a narrative of a period of time. The book opens a window on life as seen by a patient in a psychiatric hospital and what we see through the window is highly revealing. While the author and her fellow patients may have appeared to be behaving strangely, unpredictably or crazily, they had reasons for what they did that seemed fine to them at the time. Less convincing are the parts where the author tries to talk about the rights and wrongs of sending her to the hospital. She seems to want to make the point that she was going through the difficult transition from being a girl to being a woman and was having a harder time than most people. She feels that this does not justify the way that she was sent to, and kept in, the hospital. That may be the case but, whereas the description of her time is the hospital is rightly one person's story, the rights and wrongs of her being sent there needs an objective input to be convincing. The writing style is clear and direct and the whole book is very readable. While it is quite possible to read this book in one sitting, I'd not recommend that. You will get a lot more out of it if you slow down and take a couple of days to finish it and have time to think between every few chapters.
Rating:
Summary: a new book for me!
Review: this was an entertaining, thought provoking book, one that i have quoted many times since i read it. If you've seen the movie, don't expect the book to be too similar, for it is not. I read this over the course of a few days and i am anxious to read it again, to catch more details i missed in the initial reading. pick it up for a good read!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't bother with the movie
Review: So, I saw the movie (Angelina Jolie was great). Don't bother. Read the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Bad
Review: I found Susanna Kaysen's book to be entertaining and insightful, but I didn't find it as involving as I would have hoped. I wanted more to be written about the characters, their "disorders", and how they're coping with their supposed illnesses. Still, this book is funny, entertaining, and a good, mind-opening read.
Rating:
Summary: Are the patients or the doctors crazy?
Review: Susanna Kaysen has an incredibly captivating writing style. Her attention to even the most minute and often overlooked detail is especially appreciated. I like to read the story that is behind the story and she tells just that. What I can't understand is how obtuse the staff of the hospital seemed to be. I felt more connected to the patients than I did to the staff, they actually seemed more "normal". What exactly is normal anyway? Kaysen sounds as if she would be a great person to know. Personality is everything and she has plenty of it.
Rating:
Summary: The life of a 17 year old psychotic patient
Review: Imagine a story about a person going to a mental institute after only 15 minutes with a doctor. Well this is a true story about a girl that gets her "life interrupted" because a doctor assumes she is mentally insane and sends her to a mental institute. Susanna Kaysen is a 17 year old girl that wants to enjoy her life as a writer and not go to college. This story took place in 1967 and it was very unusual not to go to college and so an assumption was made that she was psychotic. Her parents really wanted her to go to college and become something she didn't want to be. The author uses very good voice and explains everything very thoroughly, it is written by the person that lived it. This book is a bit unusual compared to any other book of the same genre. You get a look at a bright young girl that gets sent to a mental institute because she wants to live her life differently then any other person. The author uses an unusual format. This is a bit complicating compared to most books I've read because the book jumped around a lot from different subjects to another. This book has been made in to a movie and I really enjoyed each of them equally. I recommend this book to any female that enjoys real life drama. I found that most males didn't enjoy the movie and since the book is just like the movie I don't think they would enjoy the book.
Rating:
Summary: Shows how much has changed...
Review: First of all, it's not like the movie. Is it better or worse, I'm not sure. I don't like how the movie took such creative liberty with the story and it's characters but I also don't like the way the book jumps around so often. Though some might say the chaotic way the memories are written reflect the author and main character's own unconventional thinking. The book shows us how people with "mental problems" were all lumped together and for the most part not treated but locked up and subdued. Were these people totally emotionally fit? Well, no, but being locked away was not everyone's answer. I'd like to see a book of the same subject matter about the 1990's and how treatment almost seems the opposite. Doctors seem happier to keep upping the Prozac dosage rather than lock them up for awhile. It is interesting to see how people's conceptions can change.
Rating:
Summary: excelent, superb!
Review: every chapter is thought-provoking and wonderfully written!
Rating:
Summary: a book to stay as friend
Review: to give it a star-kind-rating feels out of place - certainly susanna kaysen is excellent at describing her period of mental illness, but what is more important are her insights or inspired guesses at the nature of the phenomenon - I decided not to go to the movie because I did not wish to destroy the feeling it left, of being earnest and of hilarious laughter the way it is described in books of zen-teachers.
Rating:
Summary: Boy, Interrupted
Review: I related deeply to all the characters in the movie, which I saw several times before reading the book. Like most people interested in this material, I have (and still do) feel "crazy" and ostracized from "normal" society. I read the book in one afternoon and was struck by Susanna Kaysen's penetrating and brutally honest descriptions of both her own mind and those of the lonely, damaged girls she shared 2 years with. Susanna was in some sense lucky to have come from a well-monied family. Many people much like her suffer doing battle with invisible dragons in obscurity, unknown and forgotten, unable to contribute to the healing of our society in any meaningful way, and in many cases only because of their lesser economic status. Then again, money might have nothing to do with whether or not a damaged person can emerge from his or her own personal hell to aid others in overcoming their own. (???) The book is non-linear and switches between chapters describing Susanna's day to day existence and relationships at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA. and more reflective, analytical chapters like the one in which she explictly elaborates for the reader two "modes" of "insanity", the lethargic/catatonic and the manic, the distictions between the two being invisible to the uninitiated observer (i.e. the staff at McLean). Ms. Kaysen has a very engaging writing style and I plan to read her other books as well.
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