What do you think?
Rate this book
Prozac Diary
In 1988, at age 26, Lauren Slater lived alone in a basement apartment in Cambridge, depressed, suicidal, unemployed. Ten years later, she is a psychologist running her own clinic, an award-winning writer, and happily married. The transformation in her life was brought about by Prozac. Prozac Diary is Lauren Slater's incisive account of a life restored to productivity, creativity, and love. When she wakes up one morning and finds that her demons no longer have a hold on her, Slater struggles with the strange state of being well after a lifetime of craziness. Yet this is no hymn to a miracle pharmaceutical. It is a frankly ambivalent quest for the truth of self behind an ongoing reliance on a drug. Slater also addresses Prozac's notorious "poop-out" effect and its devastating attack on her libido. This is the first memoir to reflect on long-term Prozac use, and reviewers agree that no one has written about Prozac with such beauty, honesty, and insight.
203 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
56 people are currently reading
2477 people want to read
About the author
Lauren Slater
21 books208 followersLauren Slater (born March 21, 1963) is an American psychotherapist and writer.
She is the author of numerous books, including Welcome to My Country, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, Opening Skinner’s Box, and Blue Beyond Blue, a collection of short stories. Slater’s most recent book is The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals.
Slater has been the recipient of numerous awards, among them a 2004 National Endowments for the Arts Award, and multiple inclusions in Best American Volumes, and A Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Slater is also a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine, and Elle, among others. She has been nominated several times for National Magazine Awards in both the Essay and the Profile category.
Slater was a practicing psychotherapist for 11 years before embarking on a full-time writing career. She served as the Clinical and then the Executive Director of AfterCare Services, and under her watch the company grew from a small inner city office to a vibrant outpatient clinic servicing some of Boston’s most socioeconomically stressed population.
After the birth of her daughter, Slater wrote her memoir Love Works Like This to chronicle the agonizing decisions she made relating to her psychiatric illness and her pregnancy. In a 2003 BBC Woman’s Hour radio interview, and a 2005 article in Child Magazine, Slater provides information on depression during pregnancy and the risks to the woman and her baby.
She lives and writes in Harvard, Massachusetts.
She is the author of numerous books, including Welcome to My Country, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, Opening Skinner’s Box, and Blue Beyond Blue, a collection of short stories. Slater’s most recent book is The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals.
Slater has been the recipient of numerous awards, among them a 2004 National Endowments for the Arts Award, and multiple inclusions in Best American Volumes, and A Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Slater is also a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine, and Elle, among others. She has been nominated several times for National Magazine Awards in both the Essay and the Profile category.
Slater was a practicing psychotherapist for 11 years before embarking on a full-time writing career. She served as the Clinical and then the Executive Director of AfterCare Services, and under her watch the company grew from a small inner city office to a vibrant outpatient clinic servicing some of Boston’s most socioeconomically stressed population.
After the birth of her daughter, Slater wrote her memoir Love Works Like This to chronicle the agonizing decisions she made relating to her psychiatric illness and her pregnancy. In a 2003 BBC Woman’s Hour radio interview, and a 2005 article in Child Magazine, Slater provides information on depression during pregnancy and the risks to the woman and her baby.
She lives and writes in Harvard, Massachusetts.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 90 reviews
October 22, 2012
at first, i loved this book. it was eloquent, poetic, and incredibly relatable to my life. the figurative language was nothing short of incredible; Lauren has a beautiful relationship with the english language. Also, as someone who has experienced a story terribly similar to Lauren's, the subject matter was intensely personal and valuable to me.
sadly, though, it reached a point where none of these things were enough to save it. there's only so much you can write about Prozac before it becomes repetitive and bland. I definitely reached a point where I was completely bored of the book, despite the language or the topic. It was rambling and insubstantial, and i finished the book feeling very dissatisfied.
overall, it wasn't a bad book, by any means- when looked at as a volume of poetry instead of a memoir, it's lovely- but didn't quite live up to my standards.
sadly, though, it reached a point where none of these things were enough to save it. there's only so much you can write about Prozac before it becomes repetitive and bland. I definitely reached a point where I was completely bored of the book, despite the language or the topic. It was rambling and insubstantial, and i finished the book feeling very dissatisfied.
overall, it wasn't a bad book, by any means- when looked at as a volume of poetry instead of a memoir, it's lovely- but didn't quite live up to my standards.
August 31, 2010
I think this book was probably more interesting 12 years ago. I am a pharmacological refugee and on a personal level find tales like Slater’s interesting, but I can also tell you that unless you have tinkered with the chemicals in your brain, unless you have walked down this road, this mild, ethereal and at times random memoir may not have any resonance. As interested as I am in memoirs of people who struggle with mental illness and the drugs used to treat mental illness, there were times I found this book less than gripping.
July 9, 2014
Lauren Slater has apparently gone through hell, and I hope she continues to find things which help her. The few brief details about her mother and of her life which she reveals in this diary led me to think she may have severe brain chemical or wiring problems which may have been inherited. It's a good thing Prozac helps her, despite the side effects and its limitations at replacing what her body should be providing but does not.
However, the book did not give me what I want, either. It is perfectly titled - 'Prozac Diary'. Judging it strictly using the title as a description of the contents, it certainly was a Prozac diary. However, in my humble opinion, this material would have better served the reader as information provided in an essay published in a literary magazine such as 'The New Yorker', instead of a book. The first half is better than the last, and while the writing is elegiac and poetic, it is not deeply informative. The flood of lovely phrases and descriptions, while luring me initially into a state of admiration, left me realizing moments later that she had actually communicated very little. She is a magician of words, but like a magician, her talent strongly misdirects the mind's eye from what is actually happening.
It is absolutely a diary of a few scattered autobiographical events, poetic comparisons of her feelings during a regular event or happening in her life before taking Prozac and afterwords, and retelling redacted conversations about Prozac's effects without context, and as such it is not a complete study of her experience or a factual investigation of Prozac, or even a complete day-by-day calendar of how the drug affected her life, a style used by some diarists. She does not include many biographical details or a very detailed description of her ten years on the drug, but instead uses artist techniques that reminded me of that utilized by impressionist-style painters.
I unearthed a few interesting details here and there, and I was charmed by her evocative imagery, but ultimately it bored me by the middle of the book.
Without question Slater is an amazing talented writer, and I have great sympathy for her life difficulties caused by mental illness, but there wasn't enough here for a book. It would have been a beautifully constructed literary article with some cutting. However, my takeaway from the reading of this book was of watching a gorgeous waterfall for days - eventually it was the same 6-second 'GIF' flowing down sparkling over and over the same rocks.
So. The writing is angelic. Some of the author's experiences will cause the reader to have empathic flashes of understanding, and there will be sudden flushes of recognition that she has described a sensation perfectly. But I found 200 pages of vague impressionistic description wearing, with the dreamy sensation of having strolled around in a beautiful park for too long.
However, the book did not give me what I want, either. It is perfectly titled - 'Prozac Diary'. Judging it strictly using the title as a description of the contents, it certainly was a Prozac diary. However, in my humble opinion, this material would have better served the reader as information provided in an essay published in a literary magazine such as 'The New Yorker', instead of a book. The first half is better than the last, and while the writing is elegiac and poetic, it is not deeply informative. The flood of lovely phrases and descriptions, while luring me initially into a state of admiration, left me realizing moments later that she had actually communicated very little. She is a magician of words, but like a magician, her talent strongly misdirects the mind's eye from what is actually happening.
It is absolutely a diary of a few scattered autobiographical events, poetic comparisons of her feelings during a regular event or happening in her life before taking Prozac and afterwords, and retelling redacted conversations about Prozac's effects without context, and as such it is not a complete study of her experience or a factual investigation of Prozac, or even a complete day-by-day calendar of how the drug affected her life, a style used by some diarists. She does not include many biographical details or a very detailed description of her ten years on the drug, but instead uses artist techniques that reminded me of that utilized by impressionist-style painters.
I unearthed a few interesting details here and there, and I was charmed by her evocative imagery, but ultimately it bored me by the middle of the book.
Without question Slater is an amazing talented writer, and I have great sympathy for her life difficulties caused by mental illness, but there wasn't enough here for a book. It would have been a beautifully constructed literary article with some cutting. However, my takeaway from the reading of this book was of watching a gorgeous waterfall for days - eventually it was the same 6-second 'GIF' flowing down sparkling over and over the same rocks.
So. The writing is angelic. Some of the author's experiences will cause the reader to have empathic flashes of understanding, and there will be sudden flushes of recognition that she has described a sensation perfectly. But I found 200 pages of vague impressionistic description wearing, with the dreamy sensation of having strolled around in a beautiful park for too long.
December 16, 2020
Lauren Slater has been on Prozac since it burst on the scene in 1988. PROZAC diary (1998) is her book recounting the first ten years of the drug and how it affected and saved her life. That's not an exaggeration.
She was twenty-five and suffering debilitating OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). Slater had been hospitalized five times beginning in 1977 (age 14) and diagnosed in 1982 with Borderline Personality Disorder, among other diagnoses and treatments. Nothing had worked.
Then And Now
Recently, Ms Slater wrote an article for TIME about the current COVID-19 crisis, warning of the possibility of "a pandemic of depression born of loneliness and lack of touch. ... Deprived of intimacy and just plain friendliness, we are all at risk."
I don't disagree. And that sent me to my garage to find this book, and Lying. Because I remembered I'd read them, and still had them!
After reading PROZAC diary, I wanted more, and so went to YouTube where I found this - a fascinating interview and Q & A with Slater in 2018 because she'd had just published Blue Dreams: The Science and the Study of the Drugs That Change Our Minds.
I won't
diagnose her because, as my psych-girl likes to remind me, I'm not a Psychologist. However, her story is an open book, literally, on "mental illness" and its treatment. It's a long-term study (30 years) on outcomes of the long term use of the drug, or as Peter Kramer famously said, Listening to Prozac. Which Slater, by the way, writes and speaks about.
Yes, Read This Book!
if you're at all interested in Psychopharmacology, mental health, and what's next. Slater is 57 now. And, from the outside, seems to have had a successful career as a writer, Psychologist, wife, mother, partner, and farmer. Thanks to Prozac.
Who Knows?
Certainly not the doctors, or "experts", or the scientists. Slater rightly asks: Why hasn't there been any long-term (longitudinal, meta-analysis) research of the outcomes on SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) effects/affects on patients?
She states that to maintain her functionality, she's had to take six times (6xs) the recommended dose. And then, what's the effect been on her brain, her life?
Who Are You?
is the question she asks. That intrigues me. As well as who are we?
Maybe, we're about to find out?
She was twenty-five and suffering debilitating OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). Slater had been hospitalized five times beginning in 1977 (age 14) and diagnosed in 1982 with Borderline Personality Disorder, among other diagnoses and treatments. Nothing had worked.
Then And Now
Recently, Ms Slater wrote an article for TIME about the current COVID-19 crisis, warning of the possibility of "a pandemic of depression born of loneliness and lack of touch. ... Deprived of intimacy and just plain friendliness, we are all at risk."
I don't disagree. And that sent me to my garage to find this book, and Lying. Because I remembered I'd read them, and still had them!
After reading PROZAC diary, I wanted more, and so went to YouTube where I found this - a fascinating interview and Q & A with Slater in 2018 because she'd had just published Blue Dreams: The Science and the Study of the Drugs That Change Our Minds.
I won't
diagnose her because, as my psych-girl likes to remind me, I'm not a Psychologist. However, her story is an open book, literally, on "mental illness" and its treatment. It's a long-term study (30 years) on outcomes of the long term use of the drug, or as Peter Kramer famously said, Listening to Prozac. Which Slater, by the way, writes and speaks about.
Yes, Read This Book!
if you're at all interested in Psychopharmacology, mental health, and what's next. Slater is 57 now. And, from the outside, seems to have had a successful career as a writer, Psychologist, wife, mother, partner, and farmer. Thanks to Prozac.
Who Knows?
Certainly not the doctors, or "experts", or the scientists. Slater rightly asks: Why hasn't there been any long-term (longitudinal, meta-analysis) research of the outcomes on SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) effects/affects on patients?
She states that to maintain her functionality, she's had to take six times (6xs) the recommended dose. And then, what's the effect been on her brain, her life?
Who Are You?
is the question she asks. That intrigues me. As well as who are we?
Maybe, we're about to find out?
January 29, 2024
This book hit a little too close to home.
September 25, 2017
This hit my emotions like a ton of bricks. I can empathize with the author. I don't know if that's because it was well written or because of my personal history.
It was an honest book though. Showed that the cure didn't work 100% and that it cost things as well.
It was an honest book though. Showed that the cure didn't work 100% and that it cost things as well.
June 6, 2022
Prozac Diary is Lauren Slater's own account of trying Prozac for her chronic depression/OCD when the drug first came onto the market. We learn that Slater has a history of child abuse, was put in the foster system, and was hospitalized five times as an adult due to complications of mental illness.
In my opinion, this is probably one of the best possible books that can be written on this subject. The nature of mental illness is such that your cognition is affected which would in turn affect any kind of narrative you tried to create out of it. Slater has the privilege of articulate insight perhaps due to her education (which she was able to achieve because of Prozac) and because her experience with the drug, by and large, was successful. I recognize that cohesion does not validate or invalidate a narrative and that cohesion in mental illness is necessarily rare, but from a reader's perspective cohesion certainly makes for a better book.
A perspective that resonated with me was that of what happens after the cure. Slater's OCD and depression made her life difficult -- she attests to this. But she was also devoutly creative, writing stories and poems as a way to cope with her pain. When she began Prozac, she found that the stories stopped flowing and that the aspects of her Self that she had grown to identify with were gone. In theory those 'aspects' were bad ones, but removing the bad doesn't immediately make a person 'good'. Now the person has to figure out how to live in this new context -- a world free from compulsions and depression -- and this is something the drug commercials don't talk about.
Slater also touches on some of the now well-understood, previously unknown side effects of SSRIs such as their effect on sex drive and what she calls the 'poop-out' effect. For me, her story spoke to the notion that medicine is fallible in many ways and new inventions shouldn't be hailed as flawless. That said, flaws don't undo all the good wrought by medical innovation. Slater's Prozac seems to have had a net benefit for her in the end, despite the unexpected side effects. Had her doctor been more upfront with her, it seems likely that she wouldn't have been as blindsided.
Overall, this memoir was incredibly well-written and engaging, making it a useful resource for exploring patient narratives of psychiatric medication. It was easy to read and, on a personal level, I related a lot to Slater's perspective and thoughts.
In my opinion, this is probably one of the best possible books that can be written on this subject. The nature of mental illness is such that your cognition is affected which would in turn affect any kind of narrative you tried to create out of it. Slater has the privilege of articulate insight perhaps due to her education (which she was able to achieve because of Prozac) and because her experience with the drug, by and large, was successful. I recognize that cohesion does not validate or invalidate a narrative and that cohesion in mental illness is necessarily rare, but from a reader's perspective cohesion certainly makes for a better book.
A perspective that resonated with me was that of what happens after the cure. Slater's OCD and depression made her life difficult -- she attests to this. But she was also devoutly creative, writing stories and poems as a way to cope with her pain. When she began Prozac, she found that the stories stopped flowing and that the aspects of her Self that she had grown to identify with were gone. In theory those 'aspects' were bad ones, but removing the bad doesn't immediately make a person 'good'. Now the person has to figure out how to live in this new context -- a world free from compulsions and depression -- and this is something the drug commercials don't talk about.
Slater also touches on some of the now well-understood, previously unknown side effects of SSRIs such as their effect on sex drive and what she calls the 'poop-out' effect. For me, her story spoke to the notion that medicine is fallible in many ways and new inventions shouldn't be hailed as flawless. That said, flaws don't undo all the good wrought by medical innovation. Slater's Prozac seems to have had a net benefit for her in the end, despite the unexpected side effects. Had her doctor been more upfront with her, it seems likely that she wouldn't have been as blindsided.
Overall, this memoir was incredibly well-written and engaging, making it a useful resource for exploring patient narratives of psychiatric medication. It was easy to read and, on a personal level, I related a lot to Slater's perspective and thoughts.
March 19, 2013
Gulped this down in a matter of hours.
I have a bit of an issue with Slater's style - she has a very poetic style, which doesn't always lend well to her choice of subjects. When she talks about her own history, as in this book, however, it works perfectly.
Sometimes it seems incredible that there was a time when Prozac was new, and no one knew what its effects were. I suppose in some respects, there's always an unknown with all drugs, but the unknown must have been huge for the first people who took the drug. It must have been hard to believe that a single pill could change everything.
Slater is honest about all of the effects of Prozac - about how the drug can poop out, how it affects her sexually, how it affects her creativity. But she is also honest about the fact that the drug saved her life.
Definitely worth the read for anyone with an interest in depression and depression treatment.
I have a bit of an issue with Slater's style - she has a very poetic style, which doesn't always lend well to her choice of subjects. When she talks about her own history, as in this book, however, it works perfectly.
Sometimes it seems incredible that there was a time when Prozac was new, and no one knew what its effects were. I suppose in some respects, there's always an unknown with all drugs, but the unknown must have been huge for the first people who took the drug. It must have been hard to believe that a single pill could change everything.
Slater is honest about all of the effects of Prozac - about how the drug can poop out, how it affects her sexually, how it affects her creativity. But she is also honest about the fact that the drug saved her life.
Definitely worth the read for anyone with an interest in depression and depression treatment.
November 3, 2015
“If you have been sick for a long, long time, Prozac may make you high. It probably won’t make you high the way pot and acid do; it will make you high by returning you to a world you’ve forgotten or never quite managed to be a part of, but a world, nevertheless, that you at first fit into with the precision of a key to a lock or a neurotransmitter to its receptor.”
This book was like a breath of fresh air. The author's experience using Prozac (save sexual dysfunction) was incredibly similar to mine. I would recommend this book to anyone who is actually interested in learning what Prozac is like.
This book was like a breath of fresh air. The author's experience using Prozac (save sexual dysfunction) was incredibly similar to mine. I would recommend this book to anyone who is actually interested in learning what Prozac is like.
March 25, 2019
Lauren Slater is a hell of a writer. Wow. I wish I could’ve given this book 5 stars just based on her writing because WOW. The only reason I’m not is that I don’t understand what the point of the book is supposed to be. I get that it’s about her experience taking Prozac, but a lot of the vignettes she writes about don’t correlate and just feel very out of place.
I am glad I read this book, though, because as a fellow Prozac consumer, I relate so much to a number of the things Slater writes about! Also, I love an excuse to discover beautiful new writing, and I’ve definitely found that in Slater’s work.
I am glad I read this book, though, because as a fellow Prozac consumer, I relate so much to a number of the things Slater writes about! Also, I love an excuse to discover beautiful new writing, and I’ve definitely found that in Slater’s work.
February 19, 2019
A really interesting look at the difference between the landscape of health versus the landscape of illness. Kind of a meditation on the things lost and the things gained from taking a medication like Prozac. For those who have had life-long struggles with depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses, suddenly finding themselves well presents an entirely new realm of possibility and complexity (how do you live in a state of being well when you’ve never been well before?). A thoughtful look at the life of someone living medicated in the long-term.
January 15, 2022
This is her memoir about Prozac ( an antidepressant). Her journey from OCD to Depression.
Her Family Dr Tried newly discovered drug on her ( Prozac ). After taking this drug she felt well according to her statement but after few months drug stopped working and her OCD and Depression came back.
Her Dr increased Her Dose to 80 mg to try this high dose on her. She voluntarily agree on this drug experiment. She wrote about her ups and down on this drug.
Dil Nawaz
The Lion Studios
www.thelionstudios.com
www.facebook.com/thelionstudios
Her Family Dr Tried newly discovered drug on her ( Prozac ). After taking this drug she felt well according to her statement but after few months drug stopped working and her OCD and Depression came back.
Her Dr increased Her Dose to 80 mg to try this high dose on her. She voluntarily agree on this drug experiment. She wrote about her ups and down on this drug.
Dil Nawaz
The Lion Studios
www.thelionstudios.com
www.facebook.com/thelionstudios
July 10, 2022
Likeee girlie is out of control with her Prozac and Prozac metaphors. Wants us to know she’s still miserableee
Ok most of this was pretty good and quite touching,, but a portion of this book was so cringe lol. But also I wholeheartedly support my miserable women writing cringey diary entries and trying too hard with their similes.
Ok most of this was pretty good and quite touching,, but a portion of this book was so cringe lol. But also I wholeheartedly support my miserable women writing cringey diary entries and trying too hard with their similes.
May 27, 2020
Fascinating read into the inner working of a mind.
Poetry while trying to live with a mental illness. Prozac saves her - even with side effects. A life lived.
Poetry while trying to live with a mental illness. Prozac saves her - even with side effects. A life lived.
July 28, 2013
I would have enjoyed this book much more if it were condensed into an essay about pharmacology and the human psyche. The author has a gift for metaphor and an intriguing philosophical curiosity, but her writing talents weren't enough to redeem the book. Too often, the meandering, flowery language harped on topics that didn't interest me in the least. This memoir fell flat because the author didn't build up her character enough for me to care about her struggle. She started at her lowest point, and from the very beginning I felt like an unpaid therapist, not an empathetic passenger on her life journey. The writer's voice came across as far too self absorbed and mercilessly self analytic. If she anchored her personality more in her relationships with other people, not just her relationship with Prozac... it would have avoided a lot of problems. It's hard to write a book on this topic without sounding like a navel gazing narcissist, but still, Prozac Diary lacks the magic ingredient required to save a memoir from this fate.
May 18, 2024
Prozac Diary chronicles the life of 26-year-old Lauren Slater who became one of the first takers of a brand new drug, Prozac. She writes not so much about the actual drug (though she does talk about its side effects), but more about the consequences of shifting from an "illness-based "identity, to a "health-based" identity. Having dealt with mental illness for most of her life, this shift is both a welcome relief as well as well as a challenge - for who is she without the depression that's dominated her life? Slater describes her journey with humor, philosophical questions, and lyricism. However, like some memoirs about mental ilness, she does lapse into self-indulgence at times, but overall her writing is sensual, sharp, and often poetic. Engaging, candid, and occasionally briliant, Slater's book is an important contribution to the psychiatric memoir
March 3, 2014
Lauren Slater has absolutely beautiful phrases and prose. I read her writing as an eager novice writer hoping to absorb some of her talent. That said, this memoir is a great resource for the many who suffer from mental illness and/or are prescribed anti-depressants or any sort of medication for treating a psychological issue. I only wish I had known of this memoir when I was first prescribed prozac in 1984.
Ms. Slater manages to convey with wonderful beauty how debilitating mental illness is, but that she is a successful author, clinical psychologist, mother and wife, does give hope. She puts into words and prose what I can only feel.
This is primarily a memoir/journal of one very intelligent, exceptional author's journey on prozac.
Ms. Slater manages to convey with wonderful beauty how debilitating mental illness is, but that she is a successful author, clinical psychologist, mother and wife, does give hope. She puts into words and prose what I can only feel.
This is primarily a memoir/journal of one very intelligent, exceptional author's journey on prozac.
November 8, 2010
Slater's prose is poetry and reminds me of the importance of visualization. She journals her morning transformation so vividly that I felt like it was happening to me the next day.
A creative nonfiction enthusiast, I can never quite decide how much dramatization is acceptable in a memoir; she pushed my credulousness in some instances.
I tore through it in two days, and will read her other work. She has a beautiful and artistic take on her own psychology, and I hope her other books show the same treatment.
A creative nonfiction enthusiast, I can never quite decide how much dramatization is acceptable in a memoir; she pushed my credulousness in some instances.
I tore through it in two days, and will read her other work. She has a beautiful and artistic take on her own psychology, and I hope her other books show the same treatment.
April 28, 2012
This small memoir is honest and gripping, as it tells the story of the writer’s relationship with Prozac. The illness itself is back story; she concentrates on what health means to someone who has been ill all her life. She is a very good writer, able to capture the shifts in perception as she experienced them. Her relationship with Prozac is not simple, not unmixed, but it is enduring, and she tells us the compromises she’s made, the losses she’s learned to live with, and the philosophical changes that have come from dependency on this little white pill.
January 23, 2013
I love Lauren Slater's general writing style, and I love psychology and neurology in general, too - so I have some bias here, but this book was amazing. Parts of it were so rich and so interesting that I had to mark them to re-read (several times over). I am generally somewhat anti-meds (when they're avoidable), but she really gives a person stuff to mull over. About reality, and personality, and love, and all sorts of fluid subjective concepts. I don't really like this cover or think it does a good job representing the book.
May 29, 2012
Awesome memoir. Somewhat in the vein of Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation, it picks up where Prozac Nation left off, with the beginning of treatment through Prozac. Rather than focusing on depression, Slater focuses on the experience of taking (and being 'cured' by) Prozac, and the experience of taking Prozac long term (ten plus years). Great read for anyone with any sort of interest in psychology, although it is also very easy to read for anyone who has minimal knowledge of the field.
June 15, 2014
This book is a well written memoir/study of the effects of Prozac on the whole individual. Lauren Slater gives us an intimate and professional insight that explores the physical, psychological, sociological, and personal implications of this drug. If you've ever been curious about Prozac and its effects or the individuals who must rely on it this is a must-read. Also, it is an all-around Good Read!
May 8, 2009
Amazing sentence style...bold, brave...Only weakness, slow to get started...and also heavily allusive to mother as source of psychological issues but mother remains ghostly, distant ...I'm not sure that works, even if that was the "aura" given off by the actual mother figure.
I would love to read more work by this writer.
I would love to read more work by this writer.
September 18, 2007
This memoir, spanning the ten-year experience of the author's experience of pharmaceutical treatment for depression reveals that coping with the illness is not just about wanting to be healthy, but more about falling out of love with not being healthy.
October 2, 2007
A powerful and honest book about the author's struggle with depression and her trials and errors with pharmaceutical interventions. She is a humble and modest writer, yet you can't help but admire her for her perseverance which shines through her story.
Read
September 17, 2008Lauren Slater was one of the first women to take prozac in the 80s when it first came out. Her story of depression is interesting since she suffered from delusions which is not as common in depression. There's some foreshadowing for a happy ending.
August 3, 2011
My favorite thing about this book is the question it posed in my head....if one is used to living imbalanced, and they become "balanced" thru medication, are they really alive? If all of your experiences of living are on the polar edges, who is to say that "balance" should be the goal?
August 20, 2013
I really enjoyed this second book I've read by Lauren Slater. She has an interesting life journey and writes beautifully. As the parent of a young man who has been on Prozac a long time, I found her "insider's look" at Prozac informative and helpful.
October 12, 2007
good read for anyone interested in psychiatry and psychopharmacology. lauren slater is a good writer, but not difficult to read.
February 9, 2008
I love Lauren Slater's books!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 90 reviews