I didn't mean to leave quite so much time between my first reading list post and this one but, well, life. Specifically fourth year. Anyway, the second book in my reading list is....
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
'We'd reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: all of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves.'
I read this book during those middling teenage years when you don't really have a clue what you're doing or why you're doing it. Those years you spend feeling a bit weird and shitty about general stuff that you will later realize really doesn't matter. Growing up, eh - isn't it exciting! While I'm happy to say that I never went the whole hog and ended up on a ward (far from it!), this book really struck a chord with me. It's an autobiographical memoir of Susanna's time spent in a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s and not only is it really well written, but it is - in a weird way - just completely relatable, whether you're a bit loopy or not. In fact, the writing is so beautiful that I actually highlighted half the book. This is an uncontrollable habit of mine that means libraries have been out of the question for me from a young age. Instead I had to buy everything, highlight the shit out of it and then stick it under my bed. Imagine my glee when Kindle's came out and they had a highlight option - all my highlights in one place(!!!)...I went into literary meltdown. Anyway, this book has turned into a bit of a cult classic, especially since being made into a film with Angie Jo in 1999 (which, by the way, I would highly recommend seeing, who doesn't love Winona Ryder in the circa-1990s-Johnny-Depp days!?). I think this will always be the book that reminds of my later teenage years, and rereading it will always transport me back to that odd time in my life, where life didn't really make all that much sense. In the best of possible ways.
I would be interested to know your thoughts about Girl, Interrupted if you've read it or if you plan on reading it. Or if you have any other books you think I might enjoy, I always love book recommendations!
