Reviews - I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

454 reviews for:

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Hannah Green

3.8 AVERAGE

mangonana's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

coconovelnotes's review against another edition

3.75

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

jenn88's review against another edition

2.0

A semi-autobiographical book about a sixteen year old schizophrenic girl who lives in her dark imaginary world. Her parents take her to a mental hospital where she stays for three years.

theat_ralisch's review against another edition

5.0

Had to read this for one of my English classes so just let me write this in English as well and already find the words to express my opinion tomorrow (which is the day by which I was supposed to have read this).
In the front matter, someone said that there are two types of people; Ones who have never heard of this book and therefore never read it and then the ones that have read it and now call it their favourite book. That certainly is a statement to make. But this person wasn’t wrong because somehow Joanne Greenberg managed to make this book so incredibly good that it’s definitely one of my favourites. She describes Deborah’s feelings and her mental illness extraordinarily well without making it seem too medical and uncomfortable. When you read this book, you are in Deborah’s head. You are a sixteen-year-old girl withdrawing from reality into a fictive kingdom named Yr who then slowly starts to adjust to life in a mental hospital and to get better so slowly that you (and Deborah) don’t realise it for a long time. Greenberg writes about the mentally ill protagonist in a very caring, almost loving way that doesn’t make her seem unbelievably angelic but also not like the monster or abnormality that patients in mental hospitals were still often perceived in the 1960s. In the end, this understanding and care for Deborah was what won me over despite my initial scepticism. This book is so, so good that I desperately need someone to talk to about it, so please go and read it.