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Prozac Nation

3.46 of 5 stars 3.46 · rating details · 26,508 ratings · 1,052 reviews

Full of promise is how anyone would have described Elizabeth Wurtzel at age ten, a bright-eyed little girl who painted, wrote stories, and excelled in every way. By twelve she was cutting her legs in the girls' bathroom and listening to scratchy recordings of the Velvet Underground. College was marked by a series of breakdowns, suicide attempts, and hospitalizations before...more

Paperback, 336 pages

Published 1996 by Quartet Books (first published 1994)

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Feb 28, 2011 tee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own, mental-health, memoirs

Haha, so many people hate her for being so self-absorbed and whiney and I agree, she is - but I love her for it. I think it's honest; it's a fair depiction of what a lot of people feel when they're depressed and I thought it was powerfully written. Maybe I need to read it again now that I'm older but I do remember loving it several years ago.

I'd like to add that there's another review on this website that slams this book for being whiny and that Wurtzel should 'just get over it' because there's...more Haha, so many people hate her for being so self-absorbed and whiney and I agree, she is - but I love her for it. I think it's honest; it's a fair depiction of what a lot of people feel when they're depressed and I thought it was powerfully written. Maybe I need to read it again now that I'm older but I do remember loving it several years ago.

I'd like to add that there's another review on this website that slams this book for being whiny and that Wurtzel should 'just get over it' because there's people out there who have suffered more and are more entitled to being in emotional pain than she is. Er, wrong. Pain isn't something that is on a scale, you can't compare pain between people. The reviewer implies that depression and mental illness isn't real pain and that you have to be a war victim to know what real pain is. Bullshit. I've suffered from anxiety and depression and I've also suffered 'real' trauma as well and I'd give up everything to not have to deal with depression or anxiety ever again.

Suffering from mental illness does not equate to *just* being whiny, self-pitying or attention seeking; it may look like that's all depressed people are on the outside but those things are just the scabs on a deeper, festering wound. You can't often tell that someone has cancer just by looking at them and you can't assume how they feel so why would being mentally ill be any different? If a cancer patient "whined" about how rough they were feeling you'd hardly berate them for doing so. Being stoic might be an admirable quality to some but to others, the pain that can be caused by psychic anguish is unbearable and they can't help but be visibly distressed, to speak of their discomfort, to ask for help or attention.

I myself have never experienced anything worse and keeping quiet about my issues only led me straight to almost killing myself.

Also, most people don't become drug addicts or alcoholics for the ~glamour~. These are real problems, just as real as anything else going on out there. Sure, some people that suffer from these problems may be privileged people. They may have, from what looks from the outside, to be 'easy' good lives. Doesn't change how fucking devastating mental illness can be. It's too variable to be able to compare one person's experience to another's.

Whether you think Wurtzel herself is self-indulgent, whiny or attention-seeking is debatable. People with depression can read that way. People with depression can be downright unbearable but it's often not their fault. I don't know, it's so complicated.
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Sep 02, 2007 Friend the Girl rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who love other people's self-righteous whining

I'm beginning to really hate memoirs, especially the current memoir craze, where everybody has a "tragic, heartwarming story" about being abused or abusing themselves and how they got over it. Honestly, to really get over something is to not write a fictionalized book about it, publish it, promote it, and watch a film being made about it.

Prozac Nation especially irritated me. I got it for free, so thank god for that, but it is so incredibly awful and whiny in an "I was so badass, you don't even...more

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Jun 09, 2007 stephanie rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crazypeoplememoirs, psychology, would-never-rec

this was the first book i read when i was given the diagnosis of "depression" and i immediately thought, "i am so not depressed!" the book is full of self-loathing and self-indulgence. elizabeth wurtzel is full of herself and attention getting, and she doesn't give a good name to depressed people anywhere. (and she blames the fact that everyone is depressed on broken homes. what about those of us with happily married parents?)

the real problem i had was that she didn't seem grateful for any of th...more

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May 08, 2012 Caitlin rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010

If you are someone who struggles with the isolating and depleting pain of depression then this book will be one that you read with great empathy. You will find yourself identifying with certain passages, certain experiences, that the author describes. Wurtzel was raised by a single mother and basically abandoned by a father who refused to pay for therapy in her teen years, thus it took her a long time to finally enter a treatment program, find the right therapist, and begin the trial and error o...more If you are someone who struggles with the isolating and depleting pain of depression then this book will be one that you read with great empathy. You will find yourself identifying with certain passages, certain experiences, that the author describes. Wurtzel was raised by a single mother and basically abandoned by a father who refused to pay for therapy in her teen years, thus it took her a long time to finally enter a treatment program, find the right therapist, and begin the trial and error of medication. On the outside, she seems to have a great life; she is smart, pretty, and a student at Harvard but the depression is eating away at her mind and it isn't until she hits rock bottom and is prescribed Prozac, which at the time had just hit the market, that her life begins to improve. The drug is not a miracle, no drug ever can be when it comes to depression, but it allows her to function.

All this said, the book is not perfect. I found some of her analogies and metaphors to be a bit cliche, odd, and even mystifying. When people once complained to Wurtzel that her memoir is too self-indulgent, too annoying, she replied: Good. She wants to make people understand what depression is like, how monotonous and dull it is, how narcissistic and self-absorbing all that sorrow can be, but this can make for a slow reading experience.

If you know someone who is depressed and you want to get a better idea of what it's really like to be in his or her head for a little while, this memoir might be enlightening and it might give you more compassion for what that person struggles with every day of his or her life.

I'd also like to add a bit of a political angle to all of this and say that I was disappointed that Wurtzel did not more vehemently criticize our health care system for its inadequacies and complete failure to meet the needs of those suffering with mental problems. The only answer is universal coverage for every single person so that, when one is depressed, he or she can seek help and not be turned away because they have no money. As it is, there are no options for people who lack the money to afford costly therapy and medications. This isn't right and it shouldn't be happening. I'm glad Wurtzel got the care and attention that she needed but I can't help but think of all the people who haven't been as fortunate.
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Jocelyn I tried reading this a few years ago and couldn't stomach it because it hit too close at that time. What I did manage to read helped me in some way, b...more
Aug 01, 2010 02:25pm

Caitlin Very true. It wasn't hard for me to read because I struggle with depression and have struggled with it most my life, mainly because I've never had acc...more
Aug 01, 2010 06:29pm

chucklesthescot Excellent review! It is clear that you have real empathy for depression sufferers. I've suffered from depression for 10 years and it has been a hellis...more
Aug 24, 2010 01:49pm

Mar 23, 2008 Tamarasoo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I’m always missing someone or someplace or something. I’m always trying to get back to some kind of imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing.” Elizabeth Wurtzel

So I’m reading Prozac Nation right now, and the first thing that has become evident to me is that it is not, contrary to my expectations, really about Prozac at all. I had it in my head that it was some kind of ideological expose on the sad state of our pop-a-pill, medicatedly nu...more “Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I’m always missing someone or someplace or something. I’m always trying to get back to some kind of imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing.” Elizabeth Wurtzel

So I’m reading Prozac Nation right now, and the first thing that has become evident to me is that it is not, contrary to my expectations, really about Prozac at all. I had it in my head that it was some kind of ideological expose on the sad state of our pop-a-pill, medicatedly numb populace, but apparently I was thinking of some other book. Instead, Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation is a very long memoir of yet another “gifted” girl’s depression.
The second thing I am realizing is that perhaps I shouldn’t be reading this right now, when I have already spent the last 5 days in my bed in my own depressive state. My roommates haven’t seen me for 2 days. I listen to them vacuuming the hallway or letting the dogs out or cooking dinner and hope they will not knock on my door and make me face them in my despondency, and blessedly, they don’t. I am permitted to continue hiding, and finish 3 other depressing novels before picking up this one. Probably a bad idea—like the summer I spent with the curtains drawn reading Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Girl Interrupted, this is essentially just wallowing in it.
Anyway, I am having a little trouble deciding how to feel about the book. First of all, in my memory, I have associated Wurtzel with the feminist culture wars of the early 90s—a member, along with Naomi Wolf, Camille Paglia, and Katie Riophe, of the then new breed of anti-feminism. In those years, I was still riding the wave of old-school radical feminism, studying Caroline MacKinnon, quoting Andrea Dworkin, and not shaving my legs. At the time, I believed Wurtzel et al were trivializing the cause; these pretty feminists with their nude book covers and appeals to pop culture were reducing the earlier generation of feminists to prudish caricatures who hated sex as much as they hated men.
For all I know, I might be wrongly associating her with this crowd, confusing her with someone else—a hazard of reading a book that was once a cultural touchstone 15 years after its publication. Who has the time now to go back and look up the critical reviews and discussion? And yet, I want to know, what did other people think of this book? What did the NY Times and publishing circles say about it? Do other people think it is as whiny and self-indulgent and repetitive as I do, even while it speaks so directly to my own experience with the weltschemrz of depression? I don’t know if I respect it or hate it, and I want to know what others think now, and what others thought then. You just can’t let years go by before you read something or you miss out on the conversation. But according to Wikipedia, it seems the consensus is, yes, others do find Wurtzel as self-absorbed as I do, as indicated by a 2002 interview with the author in Toronto’s Globe and Mail, entitled, “That's enough about me, now, what do you think of me?"
It is impossible not to notice Wurtzel’s ego. I can’t count the number of times she describes herself as “full of promise”. She complains about her parents sending her to camp when she was young, “I was special! I had promise! And instead they threw me away and tried to make me ordinary! They threw me away with a bunch of normal kids who thought I was strange…” She insists in the sick competition of the victim that wherever she is, surrounded by the pain of others, “no one’s desperation came close to matching mine”. And then it bugs me how she makes all these grandiose pronouncements all the time, and all I can think is, “you’re fucking twenty five! What do you know about anything?!” Like how she insists time and time again that she doesn’t have a substance abuse problem, complaining after months of boozing and pill popping and tripping, “why the hell does everyone always think the problem is drugs?” I mean, maybe depression drives her to drink and use drugs, but it doesn’t mean it’s not still a problem. And anyway, how can you believe, at 25, that you really have all the answers and make such insistent, unquestioning edicts about what is true and what isn’t? Where’s the humility? Has she found it yet, after battling cocaine, heroin, and Ritalin addictions in the years after Prozac Nation’s publication?
But then, all of this is the nature of the beast really, for depression is nothing if not narcissistic. If her descriptions of her suffering seem repetitive, it is only because that is how it feels. I mean, I feel like I have nothing to say but the same old words every time depression rears its ugly head in my life again and again. Nothing could be duller than the redundant passages in my diary over the past 30 years of oh how very depressed I am. I am sure that everyone in my life is just as tired of hearing about my perpetual sadness as I am tired—so very, very tired, of feeling it. Whatever one might say about her, she absolutely hits the nail on the head, describing depression as “pure dullness,” involving “a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest.” I, too, want desperately to learn “how to live in a world where the phone company doesn’t care that you’re too depressed to pay the phone bill.” I look to therapy and Prozac to equip me with the emotional resilience necessary to life, for without it, I “can’t go with the flow, can’t stand steady while the boat rocks and rolls…. Years of depression have robbed me of that—well, that give, that elasticity that everyone else calls perspective.”
And yet, what bothers me most about this book is that essentially, I am jealous. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard every time she complains of her terrible pain and ruined life, while writing yet another well-received piece of published literature. Yes, I am jealous that she was published in Seventeen magazine before she was even 17, won a Rolling Stone College Journalism Award, had a job with the Dallas Morning News, and wrote for the New Yorker. Why can’t I be so prolific in the throes of depression? I can barely update my Myspace profile. Here she is writing essays about feminism and Madonna and Edie Sedgwick, interviewing Poison and Tesla and the Butthole Surfers, and attending Willie Nelson’s 4th of July picnic, all while supposedly suffering so greatly. And yes, I am envious of her Harvard education, cushy hospitalizations, and her twice-weekly intensive therapy sessions—she went to Patti Smith’s therapist for Christ’s sake! What I wouldn’t have given for such attention and validation of my suffering. And the way she owns her depression, wears it like an eccentric sweater, a quaint, if slightly oddball character trait. Why can she unabashedly break down in tears on the bathroom floor in the middle of a party, as opposed to me, hiding my depression under a cloak, so deathly ashamed of my tired old grief and emptiness?
I’d like to ask her if she has, as the media blurbs on the cover of the book attest, really come back from the dark side. Has she actually found the magic medication combination that allows her not to suffer so greatly? And if so, can she tell me the secret? Or does she still find herself now, 20 years later, as I do, in remarkably the same position as she was in as a teenager, even after the years of Prozac? After 6 years of the wonder drug, I no longer think it is working. I don’t want to live my life in a medicated haze, but I also don’t want to experience these dehabilitating and crippling bouts of depression anymore. So bring me the Prozac nation, or whatever pill will make me happy. Please. And then publish my memoir.
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Sep 25, 2007 Dina rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I decided I wanted to read this book, I didn't really know anything about it. Somehow, I had decided that it was going to be a mix between a memoir and a sociological look at how antidepressants are prescribed with little to no consideration of a patient's actual pathology. Oh, how wrong I was...

Prozac Nation is just another whiny LiveJournal-esque blog about how horrible life is... just because. But when we're going to take a break from this oh-so-agonizing can't-put-my-finger-on-it pain,...more

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Mar 26, 2012 John Porter rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have a hard time with this book, the same way I do with a lot of confessional memoirs. I have enormous sympathy for the condition she was/is in; I have a whole lot less for her generalizing her experiences. Others say that it's unfair to hold Wurtzel's attractiveness, her privileged background, her intelligence, and her lifestyle against her. Except she shoves it in our faces. The premise is that "This can happen to anyone!" What's disturbing is the little, tiny unsaid "(even someone like me)"...more

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Jul 27, 2007 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: autobios-bios-memoirs, psychology

I love how people somehow think depression is about being privilegied or not. It's a chemical imbalance, and it happens regardless of money, status or skills.
It's not like having the blues which you can shop your way out of!

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Mar 02, 2008 Tony Cohen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved his book, but I hold her hotness against her. Let me explain.

Wurtzel does a brilliant job detailing the devastating depression she goes through. In the closing, she said one of the hard things was justifying why she had to write this book, when there are so many other serious problems out there. But depression is one of them...it is a huge and growing problem and the author does a powerful job showing the ravaging, exhausting, all-consuming effects of said depression. The biggest insight...more

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Jan 17, 2009 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

If Wurtzel had gone more in depth with the topics she brings up in the epilogue about the nation's shift towards psychopharmacology and automatic gratification, this . As it is, the book is horribly mistitled- she doesn't address her experience with Prozac until the final chapters.

As a memoir, it could have been more centered and deliberate- but I understand why it's not. Having several friends who have gone through depression (many in almost the same words as Wurtzel), I understand that the il...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Kristine Muslim rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

a.k.a. Ho-hum Nation. Shallow and whiny. Good thing I did not buy my copy. Did not finish.

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Mar 23, 2013 Mikaela C. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book in itself is raw and brutally honest as a whole, sparing the reader no detail of the overbearing depression Wurtzel felt--however, no matter how well-written and interesting this book was, I still can't ignore the fact that Wurtzel is extremely annoying (to put it bluntly).

From someone who has experienced depression, I could understand Elizabeth Wurtzel for many parts of the book, namely the first few chapters. This understanding slowly dissipated as I realized what a selfish, obnoxious...more The book in itself is raw and brutally honest as a whole, sparing the reader no detail of the overbearing depression Wurtzel felt--however, no matter how well-written and interesting this book was, I still can't ignore the fact that Wurtzel is extremely annoying (to put it bluntly).

From someone who has experienced depression, I could understand Elizabeth Wurtzel for many parts of the book, namely the first few chapters. This understanding slowly dissipated as I realized what a selfish, obnoxious woman she really is. Honestly, she has been given so many good things: a Harvard education and therapy, even despite her and her mother's lack of money. And yet she is constantly taking advantage of the people around her, whether it be her poor mother and father or the boy she's dating/weirdly obsessed with. Never in my life or in my state of severe depression did I ever think that my sadness was a reason to be a complete cunt to everyone around me. Not even the people I have witnessed go through depression have been so emotionally wrecked and inexhaustibly selfish and mean.

The worst part is, she doesn't feel a single sliver of guilt, and if she did, it is not evident in the book whatsoever. She wants all of the attention and love for herself and can hardly stand to have anyone not have their entire lives revolve around her. The woman is an idiot, to put it simply. Even in her other book (yet another waste of paper!) she writes about how women MUST be pretty because it is a sign of feminism. Really? Does this woman have a brain?

For whatever reason, Elizabeth Wurtzel obviously felt, and still feels, privileged because of her depression and feels she owes nothing to anyone, but they owe her the entire world on a silver platter and more. She doesn't even TRY to help herself in the slightest: she makes reckless decisions by doing every type of drug handed to her, crying in bed, and rendering herself immobile because of her lack of motivation to even try, and then she questions why no one tries with her! It's unbelievably self-indulgent, self-absorbed, and whatever brains or bravery this woman is said to have is entirely lost on me, because I cannot see it in the slightest.

I could go on, but I feel that my angry rant should come to a stop. Obviously this is a highly debatable issue, but my opinion remains the same no matter what. While the book isn't bad, it isn't the most fantastic, and it definitely is extremely irritating. I pity this woman.(less)

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Dec 13, 2008 Cwn_annwn_13 rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: from-public-library

Written by an ivy league school attending New York Jewess the author shows all the most annoying traits of that demographic. A good example of which is she likes to claim she lived in poverty but yet she somehow managed to pay tuition at Harvard!!! Not to mention afford all of those shrinks that she dealt with throughout her life.

In this book she gives a personal recollection of being "depressed" during her childhood and college years. The only thing about her being "depressed" is she really do...more Written by an ivy league school attending New York Jewess the author shows all the most annoying traits of that demographic. A good example of which is she likes to claim she lived in poverty but yet she somehow managed to pay tuition at Harvard!!! Not to mention afford all of those shrinks that she dealt with throughout her life.

In this book she gives a personal recollection of being "depressed" during her childhood and college years. The only thing about her being "depressed" is she really doesn't seem like a textbook case of depression to me. She much more resembles a narcist with a personality disorder and a bit of a substance abuse problem than a depressive if I am to go by the behavior recounted in the book. But I guess feeling too bad to get out of bed, being miserable 24-7 and having no energy to do anything but stare at the walls wouldn't make for a very interesting read now would it? Another thing I have to point out is if your as crippled by depression as the author of Prozac Nation liked to claim to be how in the world did she manage to make it through those classes at Harvard and graduate? Come on man give me a break.

This all begs the question to me what is the real purpose of this book? On one level I have to be suspicious of whether or not this book was written as propaganda in order to normalize taking drugs, or at least approved drugs, to solve all your problems. She does more or less get magicly cured when her shrink puts her on Prozac close to the end of the book. The powers that be are totally pushing mind control drugs like Prozac onto the masses in order to make them happy compliant slaves like in Huxleys Brave New World. Huxley, who hobnobbed with the highest rungs of power, even came out and said that the world elites had plans to use drugs to do just that. Also Wurtzel did attend Harvard which is a hotbed for CIA activity and Tavistock Institute type of social engineering, propaganda and mind washing. But if this book isn't an effort at psychologicly conditioning and propagandizing people to drug their problems away and Wurtzel is not an agent of some sort then she is a con artist because she just does not fit the prototype of a depressive.

As far as general entertainment value I don't know who this book would appeal to except attention seeking self absorbed narcistic upper middle class young women who can afford things like shrinks, Prozac prescriptions and Harvard tuition bills. (less)

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Mar 23, 2008 Gregory's Lament rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I did enjoy this book, but not for the reasons I thought I would. Though it is advertised as a memoir, I expected, and hoped for, more of a social criticism. It is a fascinating memoir, however.

In the book, she writes that she intended an alternative to such books as Styron's Darnkess Visible, but they're really two different things. Styron deals more directly with his affliction, and less with the minute details of his life experiences. And Styron's book is much more focused and concise, while...more

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Dec 18, 2007 Xenia0201 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I almost felt like I needed Prozac after completing this. I couldn't imagine going through life being as emotionally unstable and clingy as the author. It's really incredible to me how certain events in our lives can trigger behavior and our mental well-being. Even more amazing is how all of the madness is tamed by this little pill. I did feel kind of unsettled by how quickly things come together by the books' end. I guess when things are so out of control and it's not reality, it really doesn't...more

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Nov 28, 2007 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone who thinks their life is shit

This is the first book I ever read. Never read a book in elementary, middle, or high school, but I did read alot of cliffs notes and I saw 'Lord of the Flies' on vhs. VHS! God, I'm getting old.

Anyway... I remember buying this book without anyones recomemdation or reading reviews. I became enthralled with Elizabeth Wurtzel. I felt like she was writing about me. She understood my problems, she understood my pain, and she made the same choices, and really, the same mistakes as me. This book made m...more

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Dec 17, 2007 maryann rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who's had any experience with depression or depressives

Shelves: womenlit, non-fiction

most important thought: the author did an amazing job describing her depression. i was constantly underlining sentences and tabbing pages. i am extremely grateful to have read her memoir. this book was a very important and helpful read for me.

less important in light of aforementioned praise, but still frustrating: what's up with the name of the book and the first chapter? she's framing the book like it's going to be all anti-drug, and about the failure of the system or such, but then really it's...more

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Apr 07, 2007 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although my teacher tells me that this is not "literature," I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in depression issues or the genre of memoir.

I sent this book to a friend and she hated it because of the main character, Lizzie. This is what I love about this book. It is honest and doesn't sugarcoat things. It describes Lizzie's good times and mostly bad times and her struggles within herself. It also touches on so many other topics like family, addiction, relationships, etc.

If you have...more

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Dec 13, 2008 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2005, memoir

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 10, 2012 Lauren rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cray-cray, depression, drug-drug-druggie

I read this a decade ago.
I learned a valuable lesson about what makes a gentlemen should I ever need it.
A nice guy pays for your abortion but a gentlemen will take you to the clinic as well. I haven't need this wisdom but I've imparted it to others.

The saddest thing I found about this book was Wurtzel's belief people only sympathise with drug addicts but can't understand depression. I'm not sure if this is true with everyone but she later became an addict.
I wonder if people knew what to do w...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Valerie Hartnett added it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

If you loved this book and found it spoke to you, or made depression more understandable or relatable, then good for you. I didn't find it did any of these things. I found the tone to be painfully self-congratulagory and condescending. To me, it read like a woman who clearly has an extremely high opinion of herself trying to convince everyone of how much she hates herself. Did anyone else find it overbearingly didactic?

Also, the showing off was a little hard to take: she likes to pretend her exc...more

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Feb 10, 2009 Aaron rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The only line that I thought was interesting in this book was something to the affect of "we don't really know what the brain is going to look like 40 years from now since I have been taking pills my whole life." The rest of the book was full of holes and I didn't particularly like the author. The author says multiple times how she wished she had a drug/alcohol addiction because it would be easier to cure. However, the author fails to notice that she has those addictions and more...she is a cutt...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Lindsay Hutchinson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Prozac Nation is a memoir written by Elizabeth Wurtzel about her struggles with depression starting from her childhood years. Wurtzel takes you through her psychological conflicts by explaining her experiences along the way. Her struggles consist of fallible relationships with her parents, transition to the prestigious Harvard University, and overall declination of mental health. Wurtzel attempts to solve her psychological issues by trying different psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and medicatio...more

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Feb 22, 2013 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I liked this book. A lot of people are bothered by the author's self absorption but that is the truth of depression - it turns you into a emotional parasite. Wurtzel is brutally honest and self aware, she knows the pain she causes others but is powerless to change- "They have no idea how much energy and exasperation I am willing to suck out of them until I feel better. I will drain them and drown them until they know how little of me there is left even after I’ve taken everything they’ve got to...more I liked this book. A lot of people are bothered by the author's self absorption but that is the truth of depression - it turns you into a emotional parasite. Wurtzel is brutally honest and self aware, she knows the pain she causes others but is powerless to change- "They have no idea how much energy and exasperation I am willing to suck out of them until I feel better. I will drain them and drown them until they know how little of me there is left even after I’ve taken everything they’ve got to give me because I hate them for not knowing." - she doesn't try to defend her behavior or appear sympathetic, but lays everything bare, warts and all, in order to give as realistic a portrayal of depression as possible.

Wurtzel spends the novel desperately searching for an external cause to explain/justify her feelings. She analyses her childhood and relationship with her parents, which while dysfunctional do not seem to justify the severity of her depression. She uses drugs to numb the pain and sabotages her romantic relationships in order to feel like she has a legitimate reason to be suffering. After having a miscarriage, she is almost relieved to have outer trauma to correspond to her inner state.

She gives a detailed account of her symptoms and mood cycles which is useful for anyone who wants to gain an understanding of the nature of depression. Even her writing style, confused and chaotic, mimics the distracted and disorganized thought process of someone who is depressed.

I found this book both draining and cathartic, and would recommend it to anyone with depression as it shows you you are not alone.

(P.S I disagree with the people accusing her of privilege. She grew up with a single mother working part time and won scholarships through talent, not money. That is the opposite of privilege. She succeeded DESPITE her circumstances.
And even if you have a great life that doesn't mean you don't have the "right" to be depressed. People with depression are too often accused of being ungrateful, self indulgent, told they need to "get over themselves" because there are people less fortunate than them ect., but it doesn't work like that. You don't need a "reason" to be depressed, it's a chemical imbalance and should be taken as seriously as any illness.)
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Feb 19, 2013 Kimberlee Hann rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think that half the people here and putting a stereotype on people having depression. One girl quotes about getting stories from war victims! My grandfather was in the war and he would have smacked anyone that said something like that. She is speaking about the frustration inside herself, everyone's a little self absorbed if they are thinking about themselves in a bad or good way, they are still thinking about them! Sometimes life has to be about you and that's what half of you people don't ge...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Valerie Stratford rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: probably-won-t-let-my-children-read

I came across this novel while searching for quotes for a paper I was writing exploring depression. I found the quote shown below and was floored by it's powerful imagery. With little thought, Amazon was shipping me a copy of this book the next day.

Warning: This is a fairly crude book. There is sex, drugs, a mother-load of F-bombs, and writing that many of the reviews I have read describe as "self-absorbed" and "whiny", but ya know what? It was real. It was so real, so honest, and SO BRILLIANTL...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Tricia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My favorite quotes from this are:

"...if you ask anyone in the throes of depression how he got there, to pin down the turning point, he'll never know. There is a classic moment in The Sun Also Rises when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt, and all he can say in response is, 'Gradually and then suddenly.' When someone asks how I lost my mind, that is all I can say too." -Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

"...then one day you realize that your entire life is just awful, not worth living,...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Susan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read some reviews of this book before reading it. I don't like the style of writing. I feel like I am reading blog entries. Though, I have read some great blogs. She would try to convey an idea in a few paragraphs and write about something similar in the next. I felt that there were a lot of times that she didn't connect them. I didn't get the purpose for writing some of the events that happened. What was she trying to convey? I noticed that she mostly wrote about the extremes. I'm 24 and have...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Hannah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first read this book when diagnosed with a mental illness back in 2006. I found it to be something so profound that I was able to connect with, me being only 15.

Rereading it, however, I find it to be like many of the other memoirs about mental illness out there today: self-indulgent, typical, and cliche. Her attempts to make the reader understand that she really does have depression eventually become flat and monotonous.

I do enjoy that she doesn't hide her faults or shortcomings. Rather, she...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Helen Gao rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Guess I am very late to this book - it was assigned to me in one of my writing classes in college, but I couldn't finish it before the section. Now I really wish I had, because we got to meet the author in class, and I could have asked some questions.

Not until I reached the end of the book had I come to know about its symbolic status: it's hailed as the bible for Gen-Xers, a term whose meaning is slowing dawning on me. The book is said to have captured their worldviews and living attitudes in ve...more Guess I am very late to this book - it was assigned to me in one of my writing classes in college, but I couldn't finish it before the section. Now I really wish I had, because we got to meet the author in class, and I could have asked some questions.

Not until I reached the end of the book had I come to know about its symbolic status: it's hailed as the bible for Gen-Xers, a term whose meaning is slowing dawning on me. The book is said to have captured their worldviews and living attitudes in very authentic ways. All this is fascinating to me as a Chinese born in 1988, living in a society worlds away from 1970s America, but nonetheless could see some similarities between Wurtzel's generation and my own: the erosion of social morale, a society breaking away from its older structure bound by traditional and more conservative values, the idea that when our generation came of age, the sense of promise and boundless opportunities that had shined on previous generation(s) (in China's case, it lasted for perhaps a very brief period of about 20 years) is dimming.

The book is amazing in that the author managed to convey her experience with depression - something so deeply emotional and personal - without letting her writing being consumed by it. Like the way she described it in the book, the feeling of going through depression is as if you are constantly followed by a dark cloud, and that you are always feeling isolated from the world by a thick wall - no one will understand how you feel unless they go through something similar. In her writing, though, Wurtzel conveyed so vividly how it felt like to be inside the wall that you wonder if she had been looking at herself from outside the wall all along, soberer and saner than anyone, when her story was taking place.

At places, though, the book does border on being self-indulging. In fact, that danger lurks throughout her narrative that I had to take a break every few chapters - one dose is powerful, two doses overly depressing and three doses numbing. (less)

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About Elizabeth Wurtzel

Brought up Jewish, Wurtzel's parents divorced when she was young. As described in Prozac Nation, Wurtzel's depression began at the ages of ten to twelve. She attended Ramaz for high school and was described as an over-achiever by her teachers, who expected her to become a nationally famous writer. While an undergraduate at Harvard College, she wrote for The Harvard Crimson and the Dallas Morning N...more

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Quotes from Prozac Nation

“Some friends don't understand this. They don't understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you're wonderful just the way you are. They don't understand that I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me. I am so demanding and difficult for my friends because I want to crumble and fall apart before them so that they will love me even though I am no fun, lying in bed, crying all the time, not moving. Depression is all about If you loved me you would.” — 1,020 people liked it

“That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end.” — 982 people liked it

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