Reviews - I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

454 reviews for:

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Joanne Greenberg

3.8 AVERAGE

yuxii333's review

4.0

dark hopeful medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I LOVE the therapist, she’s so sweet and caters and adapts to her Deborah’s needs and her world very well.
Towards the end where Deborah regains her passion, creativity and love for our world (Earth) again is honestly so uplifting and hopeful :)

Content Warnings

christineunabridged's review

5.0

This was such a good book, I basically did nothing today and read the whole thing. I found the authors portrayal of how someone who is mentally ill can be a rational person despite their weak grasp on reality. I thought she did an amazing job showing the relationship between a psychoanalyst and her patient to be dead on. You could see the author has a god understanding of psychotherapy and how it is different to modern therapy. I don’t know if it was intentional but there was theory influenced by François Dolto. The book was fascinating and I think it opened my mind more to mental illness. Seriously it’s now one of my favorite books.

confexxi_history's review

5.0

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

The novel is about a US-Jewish girl, granddaughter of eastern europe immigrants, who suffers from Schizophrenia in the 50’s.

I really loved Deborah. She makes total sense in her action, and thoughts. I liked the women with her too. I couldn’t stop reading. It’s incredible how a book written back when we weren’t as advanced as today in term of psychiatry feels nonetheless still true in many things about the system itself such as the mistreatment of patients that can happen. I also fully appreciate how healing is not linear and it doesn’t mean you are failing at it or its doomed in any way.

I would recommand this book to older teenagers and adults who are part of a minority group, , as I believe they may find some echo there of how it felt at times.

Personally, despite our many differences , it hit a little too close home more than once and the novel will definitely stay with me for a long time if not forever.

The title is perfect for the book

Content Warnings

garlickh13's review

5.0

dark emotional funny fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

pegsie's review

4.25

dark hopeful inspiring slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A excellent book about a young woman suffering from mental illness.

cicobuff's review against another edition

5.0

i don't believe? in 5 star reads but this comes pretty close (only rated it 5 stars to mark it as a favourite) a really great take on mental illness and the non-linear but optimistic process of recovery