I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

3.79 of 5 stars 3.79  ·  rating details  ·  13,784 ratings  ·  438 reviews
"I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" is the story of a sixteen-year-old who retreats from reality into the bondage of a lushly imagined but threatening kingdom, and her slow and painful journey back to sanity.
Paperback, 288 pages
Published November 7th 1989 by Signet (first published 1964)
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Lisa Vegan
Jul 17, 2007 Lisa Vegan rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: those interested in mental illness and adolescents, those who enjoy a good novel
I first read this in 1966 when I was 13 and in the 8th grade and it became my favorite book and remained my favorite book throughout high school. I reread it many times, although it's been years since my last reading.

This is a story of a young woman ages 16-19 who is suffering from severe mental illness (in the book she is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia) in a mental hospital.

My understanding is that this book is based on a true story and the hospital was Chestnut Lodge and the psychiatr...more
Lee
Feb 04, 2010 Lee rated it 5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Lee by: Lisa Vegan
This was a powerful and painful reading experience and not something I would have naturally gravitated to on my own. I chose to read this upon the recommendation of a friend and I'm very glad I did. I have no idea what the author's history is but she did a marvelous job at getting inside the head of a very disturbed girl who has been committed to a mental hospital. Reading this story reinforced my committment to never lie to my child. It brought back memories of my own teenage years and the lies...more
Dad
"[I like the] fine old word asylum that suggests a haven, a refuge, a place where hospitality and restfulness prevail." -George A Zeller MD, of Peoria State Hospital

Joanne Greenberg was hospitalized for schizophrenia from 1948 to 1951. She was lucky. This was before the introduction of the pharmaceuticals that are the sum total of psychiatry today. It was after the craze for lobotomies and shock treatments (can you believe they gave the Nobel Prize to the guy who invented lobotomies?) She was lu...more
Grace
I read this for a Developmental Psychopathology class and ended up really enjoying it. The purpose of the assignment was to examine the state of the science on schizophrenia both at the time of publication (1964) and today, and the ways in which the public's views of schizophrenia may have been shaped through reading this novel.

Today as in the 1960s, mental illness carries a highly negative social stigma. Greenberg presents a humanized view of mental illness with a focus on the painful experien...more
Sandra
Oct 06, 2007 Sandra added it
Shelves: advisory2007-08
There were so many big words in this book, but i got through it and i was satisfied with the ending. It's about the three years a teenage girl, Deborah, spends at an asylum. Throughout the book, she constantly retreats to an imaginary world that she created to block out what she couldn't accept in the real world. Her time at the asylum wasn't at all bad because she made new friends and those were the only true friends she ever had. I think the friendship she built at the time gave her a reason t...more
Laurelina
I read this book for an undergrad class assignment and I loved it. This book represents the real thoughts of a person diagnosed with Schizophrenia. What I've read is that the author of this book is actually the protagonist of the story. She was a 16 year old dianosed with this degenerative illness that affects the person as well as others around them. She was dianosed when the mere mention of this illness would cause confusion and guilt to parents who thought that somehow they were at fault for...more
Cassie
I read this book for my year 12 comparative study...it was very confronting.
Karin
When we meet Deborah, she’s on her way to a mental hospital. She’s two years short of finishing high school, and she’s recently been hospitalized for slitting her wrists. Her mother, at least, is aware that there’s something not quite right about Deborah, but she can’t really put her finger on what it is. A famous therapist agrees to work with Deborah to help her sort out her problems. Only pages into this novel, readers glimpse Deborah’s uniquely frightening psychological landscape – the land o...more
Kayla
Sep 28, 2012 Kayla rated it 2 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommended to Kayla by: Some girl on a mental health forum
I really didn't like this book as much as I though I would. The only reason I'm giving it 2 stars is A.) Schizophrenia is a subject of interest to me and I really like learning as much as I can about the disease. and B.) I liked every character except Deborah.

It was slow-paced and hard to follow. Deborah Blau as a character is not very interesting. She's awfully apathetic. I mean, I understand that she's insane, but my god, she's the most boring mentally ill person I've ever heard of. A lot of t...more
Victoria Hill
A moving, thought-provoking and inspiring account of a young girl's struggle with schizophrenia.

Following a suicide attempt, Debra, aged just 16, is committed to a mental hospital. Over the next three years she works with her psychiatrist to understand her illness and explores the possibility of mental health. Her precarious progress is punctuated by periods where she falls back into the terror of her illness.

I first read this book as a healthy twenty year old with high hopes for my future, an...more
Benjamin Plume
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden tells the story of a young woman with serious mental illness. She creates an entire new world for herself and struggles to reconcile reality with her own personal fiction.

I have never studied psychology, even in a superficial way, so I cannot say if the book is "accurate" in its depiction of mental illness, or if it is consistent with current thought in the field. I suspect that it is somewhat dated, having been published in the mid-sixties.

What I am certain is...more
Joe
May 04, 2010 Joe rated it 1 of 5 stars
Shelves: crap
This is such a stupid book. I read it in high school and it was one of those books that was so bad I couldn't pry myself from it.

It's partly because I'd seen so much mental illness in my own family that gave me such a significant desire to see something somehow more substantial but this effort just feels entirely shallow to me. The therapist was just bad. I mean Bad. BAD. Horrible. What an unhelpful, cold BITCH. I mean, she is portrayed rather heroically but it's rare that I want to reach throu...more
Rachel
This is a brilliant book and perhaps deserves more than three stars, but there are certainly problems, most having to do with our better understanding of schizophrenia in more recent times. As a historical document, the book powerfully represents a world in which large industrial-size mental hospitals were considered advanced, state-of-the-art facilities. Seclusion rooms and cold packs (trapping a patient in ice-cold sheets) were also considered constructive treatments, as was intensive psychoan...more
Htoo Thein
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greensberg follows the recovery of a sixteen year old schizophrenic patient, Deborah. Set in the post-WWII era, Deborah struggles to realize that the unforgiving and cruel world around her is the cause of her fictional world to which she escapes to. As she and her illness grew, the once pleasant world of her mind began to take on a more malevolent role in her life, causing her to be admitted into a psychiatric hospital after a long journey with her pa...more
The Goon
"I Never Promised You a Rose Garden," is a beautiful book based on a true story. Knowing that this is a retelling of the authors own experience as a sufferer of mental illness lends credibility to all aspects of the tale.
Contrary to the current belief that most metal illnesses are life long diseases that forever need managing, it's amazing to discover that there are people who have recovered from schizophrenia--the most frightening mental illness of all. Not only that, but the details provided...more
Helynne
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Greg Concodora
Anyone who is working to become a psychotherapist, or who is already practicing, should be required to read this book. In an age where psychological turmoil is often seen as the result of malfunctioning biological systems, and where the insights of those who suffer so intensely are often ignored, this work offers a much needed glimpse into the realities of terror, pain and loneliness that plague many of the people we will work to treat, as well as lurk within our own minds and bodies. It highlig...more
Charlotte
The title made me a little skeptical, but I really enjoyed this book. I love idea of learning Latin in a mental hospital.

"'Debby, you don't need to stay with all those...those screaming women.' 'What screaming women?' Deborah asked, wondering if he had ever heard her louder than a whisper, and hoping with all her soul that he had not. 'Well, when we visited...we heard it--' The pain of looking at him escaped in a laugh. 'Oh, I know--that must have been big, dumb old Lucy Martenson. She gets even...more
Monica!
I read this book to pieces when I was twelve but haven't opened it in about ten years, because I'm a little worried I won't find it quite as brilliant. So I'm basing my review totally on Tween Me's potentially overly-dramatic opinion.

Tween Me thought this book was fantastic. The angst! The anger! The questionable medical practices of the psych staff! Deborah's triumph over her schizophrenia, of course, was somewhat lost on Tween Me. I was mainly concerned with how incredibly sexy Anterrabae was...more
Brittni
To get below the surface of this book, one must invest himself/herself. This I was willing to do. As a fellow sufferer of mental illness to whatever degree, I long for memoirs of those who've gone through the same as me. It's easy to read a book without really getting it, and that's why the people in other reviews have given this book below five stars. They're quick to say it's boring, afraid of the cause the book gives for deep thinking, which they probably haven't been able to grasp. They're t...more
Alana
This book was...so unlike anything I have ever read.
It was about a mental patient, and how she struggles to be "normal" again. She gets worse, and her parents start to get worried, but she's getting through the peak of her sickness. Then she's transfered back to B ward, and soon released. Deborah explains that she doesn't see "average" people as average. She sees them as lucky. Soon she starts to open her eyes to the world around her and she talks through her "problems" with Dr. Fried aka Furii....more
Ab
I don't know quite what to think about this book. It was pretty crazy, in the psychological sense, but also in the experiential sense of the reader. Most of the book is from Deborah's perspective, and she's got an entire other world in her mind that battles with 'Earth reality'. So we are taken into this world, then back out again, then there to receive the punishments from the 'gods' of her 'mind world' (Yr) which send her into a sort of violent, detached, visually impaired, stomped-upon physic...more
Waseela
I read this novel in eighth grade. It's very old (I'm guessing it's a 60s work), melancholy and creepy too. The disturbing story of a teenager's journey through psychosis and how she copes with it, including the feelings of her family and the people who circulate around her. I couldn't put this one down, and I finished it before the class study even started. I found the dark dimensions of the human mind interesting to explore, the devils and demons with vague names and strange places our protago...more
Muna
I Never Promised You A Rose Garden made me think about my own health and sanity. I took the trip with Deborah, discovering those demons as if they were my own. The details tend to do that to you. They capture you, and just like that, you are involved. I felt myself get better with her, step by step, and by the time I reached the last chapters - I was begging her to see the light and let herself heal completely, because it's what I would've wanted for myself at that point. The book was pretty dar...more
I. S.
I first read this book as a young teen, probably not more than 14 years after it was published. I remember being fascinated by Deborah's internal world of Yr more than anything else. To the best of my knowledge I am not mentally ill, but I was socially awkward and lived in my own head so much I remember even trying to see if I could find my way into Yr, not truly grasping that it was a construct Deborah had made up to protect herself from the world.

Re-reading it now, as an adult, I'm aware of al...more
Cortney
"I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" is abotu a mental ward patient named Deborah. Deborah, or Deb, is a normal Jewish teenager but she has a secret. She is able to escape to a secret world with its own launage. A cry for help took form of cuts that her parents found out about. I can relate to her cry for help and find it amazing that she was able to cry out in such a strong manner, though she doesn't believe so.During her stay at the hospital she is finally able to open up and make friends, som...more
elisha logan
Jul 10, 2010 elisha logan rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who doesn't shy away from mental health
I read this book when I was a young girl, probably around age 11.
While for my memory, it's like reading this book for the first time, there is a part of me that responds to this book like it's an old friend.
I find it lyrical.
Passages like, "The horror of the Pit lay in the emergence from it, with the return of her will, her caring, and her feeling of the need for meaning before the return of the meaning itself". How well this captures depression and why people shut themselves off. Disassociatio...more
Megan Fermo
First off, I'll ask you now, judging by the title what did YOU expect?

I wasn't expecting any action. No, not in the slightest. but that title...I don't know why but first time I read it ('twas during my mental illness literature phase)I was like, Wow, I'm definitely giving that a go.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden...it's not a special title but there's a little something magnetic about it.

Here's the possible tale that ran through my mind. The protagonist (let's call her Anna), who is schizo...more
Marleen
Een bijzonder boek. Ik had het al eens gelezen en toen verbaasde het me dat het (deels) autobiografisch was. Nooit eerder had ik het gevaar onderkend van wat ik tegenwoordig ken als 'conlanging' en 'conworlding', het maken van een taal of een wereld, een hobby die ik vooral als kind veelvuldig bezigde- en eigenlijk altijd met plezier. Het hoofdpersonage in dit boek doet eigenlijk hetzelfde, maar er is een verschil, zij vlucht echt in de wereld die ze ontworpen heeft, gelooft erin en heeft die we...more
Madz
I love serendipitious finds!

I sped-read through "...Rose Garden" once in junior high. While the story struck a chord within me, I had somehow managed to lose my copy of the novel and couldn't remember what the title was. It was just as frustrating as knowing the melody of a song but clueless as to the title or the words.

As of late I'd been thinking quite a bit about the story, especially upon hearing the news of a relative succumbing to mental illness. A few days ago, while at the campus books...more
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