Helpful Score: 6
I've been depressed before, so it's not that I can't relate. It's just that I got the sense that she enjoyed her struggle a bit too much at times, that perhaps she enjoyed the attention. I mentioned this to my daughter who recommended the book and she disagreed with me, so that's just my opinion obviously. But I found that opinion somewhat distracting. I have not seen the movie and do at some point want to watch it. I did find most of the book worth the time and interesting for those who cannot understand those who are depressed, but that little bit of dramatic woe is me angst bothered me.
Helpful Score: 3
I was hoping this would end triumphantly. The truth is, depression is a lifelong battle for most who suffer from it, and she describes it perfectly. I wanted to feel good after finishing this book. I don't, but still, it was very well written.
Helpful Score: 3
I did enjoy this book, however the author repeatedly denies alcohol/drug abuse/addiction throughout, and that is simply not the case, she is stoned, drunk or otherwise messed up ALL of the time! I truly believe that she needed to stop intellectualizing EVERY single thing, drop the resentments and accept some happiness in her life. But then all addicts believe that the world revolves around them.... Although I found this author's self-indulgence annoying most of the time, it is still worth the read, and her newer book, More, Now, Again is much better.
Helpful Score: 3
Elizabeth Wurtzel is a pretentious writer who wants you to FEEL SORRY FOR HER because she is a pretty white college girl and she is saaaad.
Helpful Score: 2
This gives you a serious look at how depression affects a life, and how drugs and alcohol always seem to get involved to cover up the pain.
Helpful Score: 1
After reading this book, I wondered why I wasted my time. It is definately about depression. I kept hoping the author would become better adjusted to life after being on Prozac. I guess she did achieve that goal but I felt her disdain for the prevalence of so many people taking antideppresants was very out of line for someone who obviously cannot function without the aid of medicine. I came away with a sense that she was trying to say her depression was worse than most everyone else and only someone as depressed as she was should be on antideppresants. Perhaps there is an overuse of Prozac and other antideppresants but I resent that kind of judgement by someone outside of the medical field.
Helpful Score: 1
A modern day "Bell Jar"...very VERY real & intriguing...especially if you've ever dealt personally with depression or the drugs that treat it.
From Publishers Weekly
Twenty-six-year-old Wurtzel, a former critic of popular music for New York and the New Yorker, recounts in this luridly intimate memoir the 10 years of chronic, debilitating depression that preceded her treatment with Prozac in 1990. After her parents' acrimonious divorce, Wurtzel was raised by her mother on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The onset of puberty, she recalls, also marked the onset of recurrent bouts of acute depression, sending her spiraling into episodes of catatonic despair, masochism and hysterical crying. Here she unsparingly details her therapists, hospitalizations, binges of sex and drug use and the paralyzing spells of depression which afflicted her in high school and as a Harvard undergraduate and culminated in a suicide attempt and ultimate diagnosis of atypical depression, a severe, episodic psychological disorder. The title is misleading, for Wurtzel skimps on sociological analysis and remains too self-involved to justify her contention that depression is endemic to her generation. By turns emotionally powerful and tiresomely solipsistic, her book straddles the line between an absorbing self-portrait and a coy bid for public attention. First serial to Vogue, Esquire and Mouth2Mouth. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Twenty-six-year-old Wurtzel, a former critic of popular music for New York and the New Yorker, recounts in this luridly intimate memoir the 10 years of chronic, debilitating depression that preceded her treatment with Prozac in 1990. After her parents' acrimonious divorce, Wurtzel was raised by her mother on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The onset of puberty, she recalls, also marked the onset of recurrent bouts of acute depression, sending her spiraling into episodes of catatonic despair, masochism and hysterical crying. Here she unsparingly details her therapists, hospitalizations, binges of sex and drug use and the paralyzing spells of depression which afflicted her in high school and as a Harvard undergraduate and culminated in a suicide attempt and ultimate diagnosis of atypical depression, a severe, episodic psychological disorder. The title is misleading, for Wurtzel skimps on sociological analysis and remains too self-involved to justify her contention that depression is endemic to her generation. By turns emotionally powerful and tiresomely solipsistic, her book straddles the line between an absorbing self-portrait and a coy bid for public attention. First serial to Vogue, Esquire and Mouth2Mouth. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
This book is very sad, and complicated. It has been made into a movie, but did not interest me.
I really thought that the writing was good in this book. I just couldn't take the storyline after awhile. It is definitely about being young and depressed in America. . .
A real, raw look at a teenager's struggle with depression while in college.
The saddes, funniet, and most triumphant book about youthful depression I've come across.
good, meaty, thoughtful book ... the movie is also good.
Wurtzel's book is an intelligent, poignant, and unexpectedly witty account of her battle with depression as a young woman.
Look Ladies and Gent's alike I am a 37 year old wife and really a mother of 3. However I lost my three and half year old son on November 29, 2007, to a self inflicted gun shoot wound to his heart, and died before he hit the ground. REALLY PROZAC I must say GET OVER YOURSELF. I feel that this book was written for nothing more than a way that she thought she could make her name Large fast. I read this book and really I placed it in the TRASH, and I will NEVER read read such crap again.
I you yahoo search the name Joshua Lesnick, you will find my story to be true.
I you yahoo search the name Joshua Lesnick, you will find my story to be true.
