I'm not quite halfway through this book and it is KILLING ME!!! Maybe it's just because I've never really dealt with depression, but all of her whining about how hard her life is and how black the vacant place where her soul should be and how much more depressed she is than anyone else and how no one understands her... Blah blah blah. Ugh. This line, page fifty something, pretty much sums it up for me at this point in the "story.""Nothing about my life seemed worthy of art or literature or even of just plain life. It seemed too stupid, too girlish, too middle-class."Amen, sista. If you'd just kept that attitude I wouldn't be stuck finishing your horribly boring book. And yet I plod on...UPDATE:Finally, done. The last fifty pages almost made it worth reading. Once she finally gets help and starts to talk about how prozac has saturated our society (what I was expecting the book to be about in the first place), it actually got interesting. Incidentally, she admits (in the epilogue, I think) that her story is self-indulgent and even often annoying. She gets a little judgmental about the overuse of prozac (what, only she is allowed to REALLY be depressed?), but I found myself at least partially agreeing with her. Anyway, I don't know that I would recommend this one to just anyone, but if you're interested in depression and have a high tolerance for a "woe-is-me" teenagerish voice, it wasn't completely unreadable. ( )

Very early in my life it was too late, quoted from The Lover, begins this memoir. Ditto. I could not finish this book, that much was clear early on. I have some experience with depression, and thought this would be an interesting or insightful read. I was wrong. I could not get involved with the story, or care deeply enough for the writer to continue on, I just found it whiny and depressing and frustrating. I skimmed through, hoping for a hook, but in the end, decided this book was not for me. Best to quit than continue to judge. Unrated, unfinished and off my tbr pile.

It's very easy to feel sympathy for Elizabeth Wurtzel in the first few chapters of the book. Towards the end I found her nearly unbearable. She was trying to express how violent her moods swings were and how unlikeable a person she was, and in that sense the book is triumphant, but, it also makes the book very difficult to read. ( )

When I first started reading this book, I thought the similarities in my life would make it too hard to read. Turns out it was actually the writing that made it too hard to read. It is a very important book, no doubt. If anything, it helps one see and recognize when help beyond friends and family is needed for depression. It felt self-involved and annoying at times, and I know that this is exactly what depression is about and what is feels like, but it made the book, at times, unreadable. The title does nothing for the book until the last 30 pages, which all too quickly sew shut the gashes and wound this book opens in Wurtzel’s life. This book’s climax and ending happen almost in the same heartbeat, leaving me feel as though there was a publication date that needed to be met, rather than feeling like everything was summed up and rendered as a memoir tends to be. I won’t be keeping this book on my shelf, but I’m glad I finally read it. At least there’s that. ( )

Wurtzel can be exhausting at times, but this book was something I could relate to. ( )

Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel was way to depressing, I have depression so i figured i might be able to identify with her in this book but ohhhhhhhhhh no she is way to down for me. I had to pull myself to the end of the book. I would never read it again. ( )

A memoir of a young girl struggling with severe depression. She gives the reader an understanding of what it's like to feel the way she feels. The beginning chapters really pulled me into her world, but after awhile I became bored and annoyed and felt like she was interrupting the story to ramble on for pages and pages at a time, constantly repeating herself. ( )

Great subject, great prose, important book of our time, etc., but MY GOD will you get sick of listening to this woman. I mean, it's a very accurate description of what it's like to be very very depressed, but there's a reason depressed people aren't exactly social butteflies and it's because they never stop talking about how bummed out they are. And this is 384 pages of Elizabeth Wurtzel crashing and burning and then crying about it for about seven hours. ( )

This is one woman's memoir of severe depression, dating from her teenage years though young adulthood in the days before prozac. Elizabeth Wurtzel was a young, talented, and deeply depressed student and writer in the 1980s. This is a memoir with little happiness and hope, much like depression itself. In order to cope with the pain Wurtzel drowns her sorrow in drugs, alcohol, and sex. She acts out in inappropriate ways. There's no nice ending, at least until the epilogue. Wurtzel's memoir shows how hard and despeate depression can be.

Elizabeth Wurtzel is clearly a very smart woman and a talented writer. That said, the most difficult part of this book to stomach is not the gut-wrenching descriptions of major depression, but rather, Wurtzel's refusal to recognize the significant socio-economic advantages she has had. Most significant of these are her Harvard education and her plum writing internships. The issue is not that she "should have been happy because she had so much," rather, its the fact that Wurtzel paints herself as a disadvantaged young woman, which she simply does not appear to be. Presenting herself as something of a child of deprivation simply doesn't work, and the book would have been stronger had it not made such suggestions. Much more interesting is how the culture of high expectations shaped her depression. ( )

I thought that this book dragged quite a lot in the middle...I got rather bored of reading about how terrible everything was for her, especially since I didn't have half the amazing opportunities that she had. However, the narrative redeemed itself by offering such an honest, inside view of how depression really feels. I believe I know better how to behave towards friends and clients who suffer from depression after having read this book. ( )

I re-read Prozac Nation recently, and found it more cluttered and disjointed than I had when I first read it over a decade ago. I'm sad to say it hasn't aged well. It is, still, one of the better "memoirs of madness" out there, even if it smacks of the nineties. (A little "bell jar for the grunge generation," I guess.)

I'd suggest reading it along with her later book, More, Now, Again. ( )

i thought it was going to be more of a social commentary than it was and i think wurtzel wanted it to be more broad but really it's a very bleak picture of her own personal struggle with depression. i think it could have been structured better. like all other wurtzel i've read, the intent is good but the follow through is sloppy and a little too whiney. ( )

I really loved this book. She was struggling through a debilitating disease (depression) during a time when it was not really recognized as a mental illness that needed treatment. She goes through all this at a very young age and survives. Her problems (crying fits, etc) may sound self-involved but she was battling a disease that pulled her down into a dark depth where it is impossible to see the good/positive in anything. I give her props for having the courage to write this book when there are many people out there who still don't understand what depression does to a person and how horrible it is (ie. they say "why don't you just get over it?"). A must read for anyone and everyone. ( )

Reading Prozac Nation is like watching a car crash that you just can't stop staring at. At times Wurtzel becomes quite tiresome and annoying in trying to tell you just how smart, well-read, socially conscious, and knowledgeable about music she is. Despite this, Prozac Nation is a great memoir and an addictive read. ( )

This one just left me depressed for like a week. SOMEBODY GIVE THIS BROAD A HUG!!!! ( )

This is an amazing book. For those of us who know exactly what she's talking about its extremely poinant. But to those who want to try to understand depression I don't think this is for you. It is a memoir. The mood swings and lack of social graces in instances of this book do come across as irresponsible and self incolved. I'd think the same thing if I hadn't gone through severe clinical depression since the age of 12- like the author, at the onset of puberty. ( )

depressed from a young age, Eliz comes to terms with mental illness

6.00 ( )

I honestly could not even get through this book. It was too full of needless angst. I tried watching the movie later. It did nothing to improve my feelings towards the book.

I loved this book. Wurtzel gets a lot of criticism for her writing, but I think she shines through with this book. When I read this, I was going through a lot of personal problems, and not only did this book help me see that I wasn't alone in these problems, but it also helped me to see things for what they were and begin to be able to understand them. ( )

Another book I love to bits. ( )

A bit different than what I expected, this book was ok at first. It got a bit tiring though, and the ending was raher abrupt. Just ok, I guess. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2006/06... ( )

This year, I plan to reread some of the books I read years ago. This was one of the ones I read when I was 19 or 20 and I still think it's an amazing book. I think it's extremely well written and a very accurate account of what it's like to be depressed, at least from my point of view. I could definitely relate to it beyond belief, so much to the point where it felt like the line between reading a book and living my life was no longer there. A lot of reviews I read complained that this book was way too dramatic and self absorbed and whiny, and that's true, but that's what happens when you're clinically depressed.

The one thing that bugged me the first time I read this, and still bugged me this time around was the length. I understand what she was trying to accomplish by making the book as long, drawn out and tiring as possible but it got to a point where it seemed like the book just wouldn't end. I don't mind long books but I think it was just her behavior that made the book seem so long. It got to a point where you wanted to slap her back into reality or ring her neck for repeating the same mistakes and behavior over and over. Anyway, I think it's a very good book but I don't think I'd recommend it to people who've never been or are not currently depressed. I'm pretty sure it would annoy the hell out of those who can't really relate to it. ( )

One of the best books about depression ever written. It is so beautifully, poetically written. It touches the soul of your being. ( )