Girl, Interrupted

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful and Poignant Memoir
Review: "Another odd feature of the parallel universe is that although it is invisible from this side, once you are in it you can easily see the world you came from. Sometimes the world you came from looks huge and meanacing, quivering like a vast pile of jelly; at other times it is miniaturized and alluring, a-spin and shining in its orbit. Either way, it can't be discounted. Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco." -Girl, Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen's poetically written memoir has become my bible for survival during the rough times in my life. If I ever feel depressed or that I just can't make it through another day, I pull out my well-worn copy of 'Girl, Interrupted' to remind myself that it can always get worse. And that everyone is just a little bit crazy.

Ms. Kaysen recalls her experience in McLean Hospital with humor and articulate insights into her life in the mental institution. The emotions she expresses; anger, resentment, love, furstration, and depression hit home with readers and you share her feelings with her. She expresses herself so completely and with such clarity that it urges you to read it again and again. She questions the definition of insanity and leaves the unanswered question of our own sanity up to us: are you crazy, or are you just the only one sane?

Rating:
Summary: Girl, Interrupted
Review: This movie is about a young girl named Susanna (Winona Ryder)who is sent to a psychiatrist because of an alleged attempt at suicide. Her shrink, along with her parents, agree that she should be sent to Claymoore, which is a mental institution. When she arrives, she finds that she is far more normal than the rest of her roomates, but she slowly becomes more insane by their influences. Soon, she is graced by the prescence of the sociopath rebel, Lisa (Angelina Jolie). Like a magnet, Lisa draws Susanna to her and the two suddenly become close friends. When Lisa is forced to run away because of the horrible punishment the nurses keep giving her, she and Susanna escape in the middle of the night to Daisy's apartment, who had recently been released from Claymoore. Daisy committed suicide the next morning, because she couldn't face the reality that her relationship with her father was more than what it should have been. Lisa ended up running from that situation again, but Susanna willingly returned to Claymoore, where she recovered and was released to go home. This was honestly the best book I have ever read, and I truly recommend it. Even better, though- rent the movie, Angelina Jolie is a phenomenal actress.

Rating:
Summary: Not a Good Representation of Illiness
Review: It took every ounce of strength and the hope that with the next frame the movie adaptation would improve. Sometimes the written word should be left as such. And in no way did it have the power nor the intensity of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." More along the lines of a Woody Allen spoof.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe we all walk the edge of sanity?
Review: This book is a wonderful example of how close we all teeter between the land of sanity and insanity. Many of the feelings she expressed felt real to me, authentic. Many days I struggle to get out of bed because of depression and I know that if I choose, I can stay in bed, ignoring the world around me and disappear from life forever, or I can get up and struggle to make it through another day. Susanna was too happy to give up the control of living her own life. She makes the conscious effort to climb from the depths of her own destruction. I just rented the movie and enjoyed it so much that I am going to start re-reading the book tonight!

Rating:
Summary: Quite good
Review: A sad, yet very funny book. A very authentic picture of mental illness (not that I REALLY know though). There are a couple of chapters near the end that are tempting to skip. They have nothing to do with the storyline and are really an in-depth pschyological analysis of mental illness.

Rating:
Summary: One of my Favs
Review: Gosh i must have read this book in one day i mean its just such an original and well put book about Susanna Kaysen and what she went through in an mental institution. Its just a fascinatng book i really couldnt put it down i just really ate it up. I mean the way Susanna captures the institution and all her friends is really put in a way that i cant really describe. Its just a wonderful book and also the movie is pretty good too.

Rating:
Summary: Seemed a bit rambling
Review: Seemed like the book was rambling. Didn't really see the point. Was interresting for someone who didn't already know what it was like inside of an 'insane' assylm. Would have like more info on what really went on though.

Rating:
Summary: xenapink
Review: that' really a book that i wanna have.

Rating:
Summary: Girl, Overrated
Review: Upon reading the back cover of this book, I was expecting a nonfiction answer to One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest; I found that book and its message so riveting that I pursued (and obtained) a psychology degree. Instead, I got the uninspired account of Susanna Kaysen's stay in a glorified boarding school for nonconformist scions of upper-middle-class homes. Thirty years of life in the "real world" have not given Ms. Kaysen much introspection or perspective on the world around her; Girl, Interrupted reads more like the brainchild of a disturbed yet sheltered 18-year-old than the memoir of someone who has been to hell and back. While Ms. Kaysen alludes to the rampant sexism of 1960s America, the efforts to stop a burgeoning counterculture, and the endemic trendiness of modern psychiatry, her observations are underdeveloped or enshrouded in the fog of time and psychotropic medication. Perhaps because she is little more than a "poor little rich girl" who failed to thrive, or perhaps because she truly suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, Ms. Kaysen does not seem to sympathize or empathize with anyone she portrays in this book. The life of the one character whose problems are more severe than not fitting in with the Cos Cob crowd is treated as an amusing anecdote; others are reduced to quips and quirks. I could go on, but why bother? I found Girl, Interrupted to be as overrated as it was underwhelming.

Rating:
Summary: Yep, she's crazy all right.
Review: Read it to as an initiation to an all men's book club. Found some part very interesting, like analysis based on the type of car you drive. Explains a lot about some folks I know.