Lisa, Bright and Dark

This book contains the line "We all rushed to Elizabeth's house at lunch and nearly raped Dr. Donovan for news." Oh man. Neufeld follows up with "(I looked that up. It means "to seize", which is perfectly OK in this sense.)". Needless to say, this book is a little creepy since it's an older male author writing as a 16-year-old girl who is sexually naive but totally obsessed with boys.

But really, the whole thing reads less like a story about people and more like a public service announcement about mental illness in teenage girls. It's a pretty shallow portrayal. We are told Lisa is crazy, and certain incidents are described, but we're not shown much. True, it was written in 1969, but it hasn't aged well. Not impressed. ( )

There were a few specifics that didn't quite "ring true" for me, but that might be due to the style of the writing prevalent in the late sixties. Overall, the general issues were presented well and it was easy to identify with Lisa and her friends. Lisa herself reminded me of one of my patients many years ago--a young woman whose long black hair was parted in the middle and draped over her eyes like two heavy black draperies. On her good days, we were allowed to see her eyes and on her bad days her eyes were completely covered. A good read and I'm glad the book was selected for reprinting. ( )

This book is definitely dated in its social references and hopefully, in its portrayal of how mental illness is dealt with in families and public schools. However, it remains a strong story about young people who are willing to do anything necessary to get a friend the help she needs. ( )

This was probably a good book back in 1969, but it's terminally dated now, much like the similar I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. Lisa would probably, nowadays, be diagnosed with schizophrenia.

If you want to see how mental illness was ignored back then, or if you're a middle-aged adult wanting to go back to your teenage years, this might be good to read. But the modern reader should understand that psychiatrists, and the general public, take a much different approach to Lisa's problems today than they did at the time this story was written. ( )

A very good, realistic, sad protrayal of a young girl's descent into madness, and her parent's denial. ( )