Sacha Mardou
"To be reborn again and not of woman" wrote Plath in her journals. This book is frightening and real, a testament to the strength of the mind and the experience of being female and damaged but possessed of the self.
Pam Greswell
It was a picture of married life in the fifties and it made me feel lucky...lucky that I live now and not then. I shows how far women have actually come and how much more independence we have now. Marriage has changed for the better and thank goodness, so has the treatment of depression. A very powerful book.
Louise Garrett
I was 17 when I read this. My mother was going through major depression at the time, which I could not understand. The book helped me to understand what she might have been going through.
Susan Vaughan
When, as a student, I told my tutor that this book was not only my favourite at the time, but also one of the funniest books I had read, he said that he was very worried about me. Having lost his grandmother to suicide after the holocaust, perhaps he couldn't see that the disintegration of the female mind could capture humour and irony along the way, and also herald creative recovery. For me, like reading Jane Austin, it just fizzes wry humour in every subtle turn of phrase and comically timed sentence. However, perhaps if you are feeling too bleak, the 'fizz' isn't enough to balance your own feelings of hope and despair.
Hannah Griffiths
The book - so funny, wise, illuminating, compelling, moving - showed me that it was ok to feel confused and depressed, that you could be ambitious and messed up, that you could love and hate men. It is a bold, honest book. I felt like she was taking the emotions that I felt and pushing them to their extremes. To feel such a strong identification with a character made reading feel like a whole different pursuit that you could read to not feel alone.
Elizabeth Bond
Having read it at 17, the book spoke to me on a highly emotional level about the changes that we face as we make the transition from childhood, through adolescence and the struggle to adulthood.
Julie Elder
It helped me feel I was not alone in experiencing adolescent depression; something I didn't understand & struggled to cope with.
