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Girl, Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen

Start date: November 1, 2017

Finish date: November 30, 2017

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What Members Thought

Aug 24, 2019 Carrie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, mental-illness, asylums-mental-hospitals, mental-health

I've been meaning to read this book I guess for most of my life, well teenage years and now adulthood but never ever got around to doing so. Life and other books getting in the way. But now that I have I am glad that I did.

But now I have questions, thoughts?
How would this book made me feel if I read it while still a teenager with my teenage mentality. Do I feel how I feel now?
I look back at myself and I think yes. Because let's be honest, I personally don't think I'm that much different now; ...more

22 likes · Like · see review

Dec 31, 2008 Susan rated it liked it

Shelves: friendship, library-books, read-in-2009, autobiography, young-women, nonfiction, coming-of-age, psychology

In the Spring of 1967, after taking 50 aspirin in an attempt to kill off a part of herself, Susanna Kaysen arrives for a voluntary "rest" at the McLean Psychiatric Hospital. At first, she is told that she will only be staying for a couple of weeks, but the two weeks extend into a perpetual stay, as she ends up spending the better part of the next two years on the South Belknap Two ward at McLean. Her fellow patients on this voyage to sanity are: Georgina, her roommate and the most sane of the pa In the Spring of 1967, after taking 50 aspirin in an attempt to kill off a part of herself, Susanna Kaysen arrives for a voluntary "rest" at the McLean Psychiatric Hospital. At first, she is told that she will only be staying for a couple of weeks, but the two weeks extend into a perpetual stay, as she ends up spending the better part of the next two years on the South Belknap Two ward at McLean. Her fellow patients on this voyage to sanity are: Georgina, her roommate and the most sane of the patients surrounding her; Lisa, an enigmatic sociopath; Polly, a schizophrenic burn victim; and Daisy, a laxative junkie. During her stay at McLean, Susanna confronts the societal ideal of sanity, and finally comes to terms with herself through "recovery."

Kaysen's descriptions of her life in the hospital are sharp, witty and deeply ironic. She chronicles the details of her "breakdown" with incredible honesty and poetry. Girl, Interrupted is brief but mesmerizing - I read it quickly in one sitting. That being said, had it been any longer, I'm not sure I would have been able to finish it.

The "characters" lack any perceivable depth. Although they were written with a sort of black humor, they come across only on a very superficial level. Largely because of the cursory treatment, the story never really developed into anything relevant or consequential.

The best and most interesting parts of the book for me, were the ones in which Kaysen looked inward, trying to decide if she truly understood the difference between sanity and insanity.

"I often ask myself if I'm crazy. I ask other people too.
'Is this a crazy thing to say?' I'll ask before saying something that probably isn't crazy.
I start a lot of sentences with 'Maybe I'm totally nuts,' or 'Maybe I've gone 'round the bend.'
If I do something out of the ordinary - take two baths in one day, for example - I say to myself: Are you crazy?
It's a common phrase, I know. But it means something particular to me: the tunnels, the security screens, the plastic forks, the shimmering, ever-shifting borderline that like all boundaries beckons and asks to be crossed. I do not want to cross it again."

Her account regarding her own "borderline personality" were insightful and poignant. Read Girl, Interrupted for Susanna Kaysen's depiction of the madness eating away at her. Just don't expect the other characters to appear as any more than a thin background in the painting of her life.
...more

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