rachel_lee's review against another edition
5.0
There are two distinct camps - those who see Elizabeth as a frank, honest, strong women, and those who couldn't get past the halfway point without wanting to tear her hair out. I land somewhere in the former category and re-reading Prozac Nation cemented that. Suffering from a wonderful concoction of depression and anxiety in what can only be described as a never-ending spiral of misery - I was astonished that there was someone else out there who knew what it was like to feel this way. The relief was almost palpable.
To put it simply: if you've had no experience of mental illness, there is a 97% chance you will not like this book. It will bore you and you'll want to scream into a pillow. To those who have been through a similar mental torture, Wurtzel is almost a kind of messiah figure.
To put it simply: if you've had no experience of mental illness, there is a 97% chance you will not like this book. It will bore you and you'll want to scream into a pillow. To those who have been through a similar mental torture, Wurtzel is almost a kind of messiah figure.
sarahbelwv's review against another edition
2.0
I'd been wanting to read this book for quite some time, but couldn't make it through. It's the literary equivalent of masturbation. She has nothing insightful or meaningful to share, she just wanted to whine to the public. What a waste of time.
neenor's review against another edition
3.0
I have a lot to say about this book, and I'm not entirely sure where to start. The beginning, I suppose. I've wanted to read Prozac Nation for a long time - as a kid who was diagnosed with OCD at 10 and put on Zoloft, then diagnosed with depression at 14 and changed to Prozac at 16, I've grown up in the generation where the answer to everything is drugs. We are a drug-dependent nation - God forbid I leave the house without a full packet of Ibruprofen, just in case I get a headache! I was intrigued to read about Wurtzel's battle with depression and her experience of drugs. This was only heightened by the fact that I've spent most of this academic year studying the mental health system in the 20th century which, of course, included the discovery of SSRIs and other drugs such as Imipramine, Thorazine and Chlorpromazine.
However, I've got to admit that going into this, I was kind of nervous. Having finished therapy just under a year ago, my moods can still fluctuate and I was worried that reading this would be a trigger of sorts. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn't trigger me at all - in fact, I was able to identify with a lot of Wurtzel's inner demons, but in retrospect. So for me, the book was a real eye-opener about myself and my own situation.
Anyway, as of the book itself, I think it's a really good literary piece. You can tell that Wurtzel has a talent for words - the sentences just flowed on the page which made it a relatively easy read despite its difficult content. I do understand what other people mean about the author sounding incredibly whiny and self-pitying, but having been in that situation, I can't hold that against her. She made a lot of valid points about this postmodern generation and the stigmas that are attached to people with mental illnesses. I'd recommend this book to every clinical psychologist, every psychiatrist, because it is a poignant and truthful insight into the minds of the patients they are trying to treat.
However, I've got to admit that going into this, I was kind of nervous. Having finished therapy just under a year ago, my moods can still fluctuate and I was worried that reading this would be a trigger of sorts. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn't trigger me at all - in fact, I was able to identify with a lot of Wurtzel's inner demons, but in retrospect. So for me, the book was a real eye-opener about myself and my own situation.
Anyway, as of the book itself, I think it's a really good literary piece. You can tell that Wurtzel has a talent for words - the sentences just flowed on the page which made it a relatively easy read despite its difficult content. I do understand what other people mean about the author sounding incredibly whiny and self-pitying, but having been in that situation, I can't hold that against her. She made a lot of valid points about this postmodern generation and the stigmas that are attached to people with mental illnesses. I'd recommend this book to every clinical psychologist, every psychiatrist, because it is a poignant and truthful insight into the minds of the patients they are trying to treat.
esoreilla's review against another edition
2.0
some good quotes with relatable moments, overall just one big pity party about an unappreciative attention-seeking girl
thekatisalie's review against another edition
3.0
When I first started reading this book, I thought the similarities in my life would make it too hard to read. Turns out it was actually the writing that made it too hard to read. It is a very important book, no doubt. If anything, it helps one see and recognize when help beyond friends and family is needed for depression. It felt self-involved and annoying at times, and I know that this is exactly what depression is about and what is feels like, but it made the book, at times, unreadable. The title does nothing for the book until the last 30 pages, which all too quickly sew shut the gashes and wound this book opens in Wurtzel���s life. This book���s climax and ending happen almost in the same heartbeat, leaving me feel as though there was a publication date that needed to be met, rather than feeling like everything was summed up and rendered as a memoir tends to be. I won���t be keeping this book on my shelf, but I���m glad I finally read it. At least there���s that.
colleenbee's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not quite halfway through this book and it is KILLING ME!!! Maybe it's just because I've never really dealt with depression, but all of her whining about how hard her life is and how black the vacant place where her soul should be and how much more depressed she is than anyone else and how no one understands her... Blah blah blah. Ugh. This line, page fifty something, pretty much sums it up for me at this point in the "story."
"Nothing about my life seemed worthy of art or literature or even of just plain life. It seemed too stupid, too girlish, too middle-class."
Amen, sista. If you'd just kept that attitude I wouldn't be stuck finishing your horribly boring book. And yet I plod on...
UPDATE:
Finally, done. The last fifty pages almost made it worth reading. Once she finally gets help and starts to talk about how prozac has saturated our society (what I was expecting the book to be about in the first place), it actually got interesting. Incidentally, she admits (in the epilogue, I think) that her story is self-indulgent and even often annoying. She gets a little judgmental about the overuse of prozac (what, only she is allowed to REALLY be depressed?), but I found myself at least partially agreeing with her. Anyway, I don't know that I would recommend this one to just anyone, but if you're interested in depression and have a high tolerance for a "woe-is-me" teenagerish voice, it wasn't completely unreadable.
"Nothing about my life seemed worthy of art or literature or even of just plain life. It seemed too stupid, too girlish, too middle-class."
Amen, sista. If you'd just kept that attitude I wouldn't be stuck finishing your horribly boring book. And yet I plod on...
UPDATE:
Finally, done. The last fifty pages almost made it worth reading. Once she finally gets help and starts to talk about how prozac has saturated our society (what I was expecting the book to be about in the first place), it actually got interesting. Incidentally, she admits (in the epilogue, I think) that her story is self-indulgent and even often annoying. She gets a little judgmental about the overuse of prozac (what, only she is allowed to REALLY be depressed?), but I found myself at least partially agreeing with her. Anyway, I don't know that I would recommend this one to just anyone, but if you're interested in depression and have a high tolerance for a "woe-is-me" teenagerish voice, it wasn't completely unreadable.
lungteeth's review against another edition
4.0
This is the best account of borderline personality disorder I've come across. It completely captures the irrational fear of losing people, and the constant obsession with the internal void that becomes total self-obsession. For me this book is relatable, but for someone who does not themselves suffer from BPD this book may enlighten them to what it feels like and how there is no rational manipulation behind our erratic behavior, just pure desperation. It's a shame that Wurtzel didn't have the BPD diagnosis as the time this book was written and her experience is instead labelled as depression thus losing the opportunity to increase awareness of BPD.