Reviews with content warning for Self harm - I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

“All Deborah heard were the sounds of her own gasps of exhaustion as she climbed an Everest that was to everyone else an easy and level plain. As she reeled and pulled on the endless, vertical cliff, she felt that every favor, every easing, was an unpaid debt heaped upon her by loving tormenters and weighing like lumps of lead. Among equals gratitude is reciprocal; her gratitude to these Titans, who called themselves average and were unaware of their own tremendous strength in being able to live, only made her feel more lost, inept, and lonely than ever.”

I picked up I Never Promised You a Rose Garden on a whim because I needed a new book for my train home having forgotten my earphones, and I can’t resist a modern classic. This book is now perhaps my most favourite book of all time. As a teenager I was a big fan of The Bell Jar, and while the subject matter in Greenberg’s fictional autobiography is similar, the portrayal and handling is pretty different. Maybe I struggled to relate to Esther’s sickness, but something about Deborah’s spoke to me. Esmé Weijun Wang says something interesting in the foreword: “Both my best friend at the time and I were dealing with burgeoning, undiagnosed mental illness, and when I asked Kate what she thought of the novel, she replied, “I didn’t find it so strange.”” I think that’s the best description of my experience with this book, too. It didn’t seem so strange to me.

Greenberg navigates complex mental states in their extremes seamlessly and with an expertise recognisable to those that have suffered such states. Witnessing the stages of Deborah’s ongoing recovery and relapse taught me a lot about the way I approach my own life and provided this strange sense of comfort that alleviated some quiet and innate loneliness I didn’t realise I’d been holding on to. Her persistence to join reality, once she discovers the colour in the world, despite all her setbacks and symptoms has given me hope too. Her story, and also Greenberg’s, is so beautifully told, and the other inpatients well written and admirable characters. Greenberg ruminates on the concept of “us” and “them”, the sick and the well, and bridging the gap between. Her detail of Deborah’s maladaptive escapism, her own created world of Yr, is simultaneously beautiful, fascinating, and sorrowful, and perfectly illustrates how your mind can turn against you when it is sick, and how the habits you build to cope can keep you sick. Dr Fried acts as the voice of reason, and has some great quotations like :

“The symptoms and the sickness and the secrets have many reasons for being. The parts and facets sustain one another, locking in and strengthening one another. If it were not so, we could give you a nice shot of this or that drug or a quick hypnosis and say, ‘Craziness, begone!' and it would be an easy job. But these symptoms are built of many needs and serve many purposes, and that is why getting them away makes so much suffering.”

Dr Fried tirelessly shows Deborah how Yr was something she created to once protect her and save her from the cruelty of the real world, but has now descended into an illness that’s robbing her of the joys of life and needs to be relinquished in order to gain access to the world again. Deborah constantly battles with both worlds, treading the thin line between and receiving the punishment for it from Yr, but still she goes back for more. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden details the immense strength of the human spirit and the will to live, even if much more will and effort is required than normal. This book has given me new hope for my own life, and I’m so glad I happened to pick it up.

Content Warnings

tysuckz's review against another edition

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dark hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

The afterword was definitely a great addition to this book. I don't rate the book very highly because I found it to be kind of confusing, but I do understand that it is written with Deborah's state of mind as the forefront so it wouldn't make sense for it ...to make sense?

I do think the ending felt a bit rushed... like all of a sudden she just was magically cured after declining so rapidly. I suppose getting worse before you get better but also ... she was moved to D ward and was severely hurting herself and then all of a sudden she's basically fine and out in the real world.

I did enjoy the hopeful nature of it though!

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lizlikesfrogs's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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hattie's review against another edition

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4.0

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cpratreads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I really liked this book. It was a compassionate look into the life of a mentally ill girl, and the love, space, trust, and fight that can help her reclaim herself.

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dashtahiri's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes

4.25

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jo_li_est's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

mondovertigo's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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