Buy Used
Used - Good See details
Price: £2.77

or
 
   
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Colour:
Image not available

 
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America - A Memoir [Paperback]

Elizabeth Wurtzel
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover --  
Paperback £8.62  
Paperback, 1 Mar 1996 --  
Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Certificate, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more.

Book Description

1 Mar 1996
An account, both harrowing and amusing, of the author's dependence on Prozac, prescribed for her after a series of suicide attempts and breakdowns. She describes her experiences and her determination to get herself off medication.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


Product details

  • Paperback: 328 pages
  • Publisher: Quartet Books; New edition edition (1 Mar 1996)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0704380080
  • ISBN-13: 978-0704380080
  • Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 19.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 12,919 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Re: Recovery 26 Dec 2004
Format:Paperback
"Gradually... then suddenly." There appears little else to descirbe the journey of depression that is suffered by not just the authour, but thousands everyday. Those on the outside do not understand; they cannot comprehend what is experienced by the individual labelled clinically depressed.

'Prozac Nation' truly made me feel that I was not alone; that there indeed was someone to help me. Someone who truly knew that I wanted to live. "The same way I came down, I came up." If it hadn't been for this account, I genuinely do not believe I would be here today. I highlight the pages of her narrative and every page seems applicable to myself. But there is only so much to mark. You have to make it for yourself and for any manic depressive, I genuinely belive that you are strong enough to bid adieu to the black cloud.

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having suffered from depression since I was 13, I have found this book an insightful read that attempts to abolish the perception that children do not suffer from or cannot suffer from depression. I have read rview that say this memoir is self-pitying and egotistical. I cannot agree because in all honesy, this is how depression takes hold, especially when the audience has never suffered from it. People around one tend to pre-judge making implications that one is self-absorbant and just morbid & needs to 'snap out of it'. This is something that 99% of sufferers have had to deal with at least once during their illness.

Elizabeth captures the ambience perfectly & describes how the depression takes hold of her & how hysterical it makes both her mother & herself. She shows the lack of understanding of others without blame & that it is a difficult illness to understand when there seems to be no 'real reason' behind it. Elizabeth tries to emphasise that she struggles with the guilt that she feels for having this illness considering that other people have been through worse things than her during their lives. I do think that Elizabeth's ego and confidence as a woman with this illness has been perceived badly. I honestly don't think she wrote he book to appeal to her own ego. She wanted to share her struggle & get rid of the taboo that surrounds mental illness & to show that some people are genetically more prone to the illness & do not need a 'legitimate reason' (such as abuse) to suffer from it.

The only advice I give is to try to put yourself in the same position as Elizabeth & to try to understand how this illness affects people. We are not being deliberately selfish, but obviously, the self is the only thing you can think of when you're in the bubble of depression.
Was this review helpful to you?
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I had hoped 11 Sep 2007
By Philida
Format:Paperback
While I struggled to enjoy this book - I found it very hard to sympathise with Wurtzel, unfortunately - it should probably be of some interest to anyone interested in depression or psychology, or even just growing up in America in the 1970s and '80s.

Wurtzel is obviously well-read, as evidenced by her numerous references to classic works of fiction. This isn't something you find too often in modern literature, so I did find that bit gratifying. There were a couple of quite interesting passages which spoke to me - although given the length of the book, that doesn't really say much in its favour.

Like other people who have reviewed this, I've suffered from depression - but this doesn't mean that I identified with Wurtzel, and consequently I'd warn people off if they picked it up hoping to find an author who would commiserate with their problems. While it's not my thing at all, it very obviously speaks volumes to some people - so I'm giving it two stars.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
84 of 95 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Young and Depressed in America 17 Mar 2006
Format:Paperback
The book is a true to life portrayal of Elizabeth’s life in the USA, written first hand. It starts of in her childhood, in approximately the 1970’s, when she is only around 8 or 9 from when she still feels normal to when she starts to feel the depression first kicking in. Her parents separate when she is pretty young and she gets sent away to Summer Camp for months on end which she dreads. During one of these Summers as a child of only 9 or 10 she takes her first overdose, not enough to do any real damage, but enough to be recognised as a cry for help…. She also spends long periods of time sitting in the toilets at school cutting her legs, however she can hide this all too well. Sadly no-one notices her cries for help and life goes on with Elizabeth sinking further and further into her depression.

The bulk of the book is set during her late teens and the time she spends at college. Elizabeth is an interesting case because she is a very intelligent person and despite her depression she gets a place to study at Harvard and she always somehow manages to just scrape through. Unfortunately away from the security of home, things just get worse for Elizabeth. She starts to drink a lot and to take a lot of drugs, cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis, speed, you name it, to try to make the pain go away and to try to ‘fit in’ but this just makes everything worse.

When she isn’t on a manic partying spree Elizabeth’s days are primarily spend alone, in bed, in the dark, because she can’t even find the energy to drag herself up out of bed. She cries endlessly for days on end and tortures her poor mother who simply cannot understand her ups and downs. Her father stops speaking to her altogether and disappears for up to years at a time....

Elizabeth’s lowest states can be demonstrated with two examples, both of which occur while she is at Harvard. She sleeps with a lot of people, but because she is so depressed she doesn’t even notice that she hasn’t had a period for two months. That’s until she wakes in the middle of the night, covered in blood and is taken, screaming, to the hospital where she is told she’s had a miscarriage. The other example is her description of the time her Grandparents, two lovely old people, went to visit her in Harvard. They undertake the five hour drive only to find that Elizabeth is not there. She is recovering from a night of taking one hell of a cocktail of drugs on the floor of a friend’s house, depressed and on a come-down she is simply unable to get up and go and meet her Grandparents. They bang on her door and leave countless messages, worried sick, just five minutes away and all Elizabeth can do is lie and cry about the fact that she can’t get up and go and meet them, she just cannot deal with it…...

Her saving grace must be her friends who also seem there to pick her up and drag her to the psychiatry ward or give her a good talking to and of course, her mother. Without these people who are described in great detail within the book, who knows where Elizabeth would be today, or even if she would be….

Other parts of her life are more positive, at times she holds down a good summer job, throwing herself into the workload manic as ever, working all night and proud of what she can achieve and partying all night with it. These are clear manic episodes in which she does crazy, impulsive things without thinking them through and consequently these things often end up going horribly wrong. But of course, such moments never last long, it always goes back to the depression. Elizabeth knows this and she just waits for it to happen.

It gets to the state where Elizabeth is admitted to the psychiatric ward fulltime as she starts to contemplate suicide, in fact there is a period where she is in and out of here on a number of occasions. She eventually has a lot of therapy with a women named Dr Sterling, who she comes to trust and rely upon deeply and who managed to help her and keep her away from the edge. It is this women who eventually starts to try Elizabeth on drugs to control her depression. Some make it worse, some improve the situation marginally. At this point Prozac is a brand new drug on trial and Elizabeth agrees to give it a shot despite the little knowledge there was about the drug at this point. Of course you can guess the rest. The improvement is dramatic and immediate and it changed Elizabeth’s life immensely for the better, letting her control her depression and at least attempt to lead a normal existence.

In many ways this isn’t a happy ending, for Elizabeth the problem will never go away and she has to deal with a life in which she relies on pills, the side effects that come with them and the occasional bouts of depression she still seems to slip into…..

At the end of the book there is a prologue and considerable information about the life of Prozac since Elizabeth became one of the first to be prescribed the drug. There is a very amusing extract in which Elizabeth discusses her friend’s cat. The owners of the cat had recently separately and there had been a house move; consequently the cat had become distressed and had starting to tear fur from it’s coat and chew it. The vet diagnosed depression and prescribed the cat with a low dose of Prozac. Sure this is America, they love their legal drugs over there, but isn’t this just the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? The whole point of course is to illustrate that the whole Prozac thing has got way out of hand, millions of people in America and World Wide now take Prozac and the drug is well over-prescribed. Elizabeth had to suffer for over a decade with the debilitating disease that is depression before she was offered any real help now you can just pop to the Doc’s and I reckon you or I could get some without much cause for fuss at all…. Still that’s the way of the world!

What I also liked about the book is that it contains numerous literary references, for example snapshots of characters or storylines who Elizabeth feels she can relate to. Elizabeth is a literature student and a huge bookworm which explains this constant referencing. If you’re like me and you really enjoy reading then you’ll find that your attention will constantly be grabbed by another interesting book title or author to add to your list of must read material.

In summary I’d just like to say that this is truly a great read, passionately written and shocking to the core, you just won’t be able to put it down. It is an insight into a world you didn’t know existed and if anything at least it helps the rest of us to understand to some extent. Depression is a real problem, however exaggerated it has become, we just have to hope and pray that it is something we don’t have to deal with in our own lives but it personally or to those we love. Read more ›

Was this review helpful to you?
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?   Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Good insight into depression
Wurtzel writes about depression better than anyone else I know apart from William Styron in "Darkness Visible". Read more
Published 1 month ago by Escal
5.0 out of 5 stars great book
great book and also a great film - if you haven't seen the film I recommend reading the book first.
Published 1 month ago by Mr. J. Dawson
4.0 out of 5 stars Not easy-going, but great book
Much better to read the book before you watch the movie. Very honest, thought-provoking, sad, contemporary. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Nina Snyman
2.0 out of 5 stars Poor little rich girl.
It was very difficult for me to identify with Elizabeth throughout her story. Depression is a serious illness, but what Elizabeth went through doesn't seem very extreme to me. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Dystopiana
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable book.
As enjoyable as a book about being depressed can be. I've been suffering from depression for a while, and it's an interesting look into how someone else has gone through it and... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Laura Leitch
3.0 out of 5 stars Suffering with Depression
I enjoyed this book because she has clearly expressed and beautifully written what so many people are feeling but cannot express. Read more
Published 3 months ago by elaine
1.0 out of 5 stars 5 chapters in, doubt I'll finish.
I've suffered from Depression and Anxiety for a large chunk of my life, but this book really makes me angry. Read more
Published 8 months ago by raven_guest
1.0 out of 5 stars A serious let down
Unfortunately, this book did not deliver. Within the first 30 pages i was beginning to hate the main character, her constant, boring whyning that removed the complete emphasis of... Read more
Published 9 months ago by mrflibble
5.0 out of 5 stars Prozac Nation - Elizabeth Wurtzel
Review: This is one of my favourite books and one that I read again and again, usually when I am feeling depressed. Read more
Published 9 months ago by BlueAngelCV
5.0 out of 5 stars Prozac Nation - A brilliant truth telling story
This book is absolutely fantastic. I purchased it about 5 years ago from Amazon and have read it at least twice again since that time. Read more
Published 9 months ago by extraordinary girl
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
Next book suggestions please! 0 12 Mar 2012
SUITABLE? 4 3 Aug 2011
See all 2 discussions...  
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
   
Related forums


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback