However, from certain comments made throughout the book, I don't know if Wurtzel's recounting is 100 percent accurate. Her mother is portrayed as a struggling single mother with little or no support, either financially or emotionally, from the father. Her parents divorced when she was very young and her father appears to be the typical estranged divorced dad and she resents him for that. It is a memoir of the author's life from about age 11 to 25 when she suffered recurrent and deepening bouts of depression. I have to say that it wasn't a book I really enjoyed but I am glad I read it, if that makes sense. Read moreįinally have read this book which has languished on my bookshelf for far too long. A good book for anyone who has ever been depressed or known someone with depression, but somewhat of a struggle to get through at times. I struggled to make it through the epilogue, which in some ways was interesting (very dated, it sums up the grunge culture of the mid 90s). The book covers her life from her early childhood with divorced parents, religious schooling and her life at Harvard, including studies, relationships and her partying.While I understand that the author's struggle with depression was not due to her life circumstances (really, I only truly understood this in the last chapter, when both we and the author learn she has atypical depression, and not depression simply because her parents divorced etc), I sometimes felt the book was a little too verbose and could have been condensed. Prozac Nation is the story of Elizabeth Wurtzel's life, and how she dealt with her atypical depression in the days before Prozac-and how the drug, once on the market, was able to help her live a somewhat normal life.

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