"Poignant, honest and triumphantly funny ... [a] compelling and heartbreaking story." --
The New York Times Book Review "In piercing vignettes shadowed with humor [Kaysen] brings to life the routine of the ward and its patients.... Kaysen's meditations on young women and madness form a trenchant counterpoint to the copies of her medical records that are woven into the text."
--The New Yorker "An eloquent and unexpectedly funny memoir." --
Vanity Fair ''Memorable and stirring ... fascinating. A powerful examination not only of Kaysen's own imperfections but of those of the system that diagnosed her." --
Vogue "Tough-minded ... darkly comic ... written with indelible clarity." --
Newsweek "[A]n account of a disturbed girl's unwilling passage into womanhood ... and here is the girl, looking into our faces with urgent eyes." --
Washington Post Book World "At turns wry, sardonic, witty ... an unusual glimpse of a young woman's experience with insanity. Kaysen presents a meaningful analysis of the dual and contradictory nature of psychiatric hospitalization as both refuge and prison." --
San Francisco Chronicle
