Girl Interrupted Author:Susanna Kaysen In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. The author spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele -- Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor,... more » and Ray Charles -- as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary.
Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception, while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching document that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery. « less
This is one rare case in which the movie was better than the book. Kaysen's account of her time in a mental institution is vaguely interesting, yet lacks a real pull. This is a very quick read. An okay book but the movie is much more engaging.
Love the film, love the book! the book is different, but the way the film was made, it did fit, so to speak. Alot of my books are going into a "KEEP" shelf and this is one! This book was a quick read and was throughly enjoyable! This will be my "Flight" book for my trips between Michigan and Nevada!
This is one of those rare occurrences where the movie is actually better than the book. The book is very short and does not include 70% of the things that happened in the movie. You can finish this book in a few hours. Great premise but pretty boring.
Susanna Kaysen was eighteen years old when a psychiatrist she had never met before diagnosed her with borderline personality disorder and sent her off to McLean, a mental hospital in Massachusetts. Within the scarily strict confines of the hospital--"checks" every five minutes, maximum security, three doctors every day--Susanna witnesses the comings and goings of some eclectic patients, as well as the constancy of some more of her "friends." Nearly two years later, Susanna is released from McLean. But is she cured? The doctors say she is "recovered," but how does one recover from something that is extremely subjective in the first place?
GIRL, INTERRUPTED is a fantastically written account of a stay in a mental hospital, in a time of American history where mental disorders were undergoing a sort of baby boom themselves, with people being diagnosed and confined to wards left and right. Kaysen artistically challenges the rampant diagnoses of mental illnesses. Readers will shudder--and yet be awed--at the circumstances she underwent, and wonder, perhaps a little depressingly, whether they could possibly be diagnosed for mental illness as well in such an unforgiving and untrusting world. Highly recommended!
I really enjoyed this book. Short and good!!! I had to rent the movie and re-watch. Such a good story about people with mental illness who come back to the normal world!
This short book is written in a wry, ironic voice, which adds credibility to its narrator. I saw the movie first eons ago, and mostly remembered Lisa's character as played by Angelina Jolie. But the book is something else (thank God!). At times confessional, at others piercely observant, and always understatedly funny, this is a memoir to be savored best by those who, like the author, have found themselves at the mercy of "mental health professionals", but are now firmly on the other side of the ordeal. Definitely a book that deserves more than one reading.
I choose to read this book base on working in the mental health field. If you also choose to read it as a personal perpective of a person that had been amitted to a mental hospital and how she felt and changed though out the two years. The book is good. However if you want to read it for a good story this book might not be for you. The movie might be a better choice.
I found myself falling in love with the characters in the short book. I could not put it down and finished very quickly. I appreciate Susanna and her allowing us to have a look into her life in the psych ward.
I really enjoyed reading this book. I actually sat down in one day and read it. It showed the horrors of being in a mental hospital in the 1960s for two years must have been like, but added humor as well. If you have borderline personality or know someone who does this is a must read!
Obviously the book is not as 'great' and detailed as the movie - Hollywood always adds to things. This book is very straight-to-the-point and she doesn't waste time in telling you what she has to say and telling about her experience. Very quick read. If you've ever seen the movie, I suggest picking up the book also.
