Girl Interrupted VS The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime

From the books I have read in College Literature, I have realized a lot of similarities and differences between Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. 

Some of the similarities I noticed was that Susanna and Christopher both were very observant about their surroundings. Susanna always was intrigued by patterns of the floor, walls and about the human body especially her bones, that's why she bit part of her hand in order to see the bones inside her hand. The reason why she did that was because she felt like she didn't have any bones and that she was different than others. Christopher on the other hand is always observing things. He always notices the extraordinary in ordinary situations. For example, he noticed that the garden fork that was used to kill Wellington, Mrs. Shear's black poodle, was owned by Mrs. Shears so nobody planned to kill him. He also noticed a lot of things about his journey to find his mother in London. In both stories, it was written in a narrative perspective  so both stories were telling a story about their lives. Both stories were inspired by their own daily lives. For example Mark worked with mentally disabled kids that's why he wrote a story about Christopher, and Susanna wrote about her past experiences at McLean Hospital. She also added all medical documents to emphasize on her diagnosis/stay at the hospital.

The differences between these two books that I noticed would be that it is both taken place at different time/places. In Kaysen's book, it takes place in Massachusetts in McLean Hospital and for Haddon, it is in Swindon and London. Christopher was mainly home all the time while his dad was at work and he went on his own expeditions to figure out who killed Wellington. Because he had autism, he was immensely smart but yet arrognant when it comes to the social aspects of life. He would always criticize people in general because he thought they were "stupid" and "too caught up in their lives to notice anything". If he was with living with Susanna, he would totally get irritated with her and use his broad vocabulary terms to explain to her how "stupid" she is for doing whatever she does. The diagnosis/mental illness that each character has is different. Christopher had autism and Asperger syndrome while Susanna was depressed with borderline personality disorder. Susanna also attempted to kill herself and Christopher did not. The plot was different because it is a mystery for Haddon's novel and Kaysen is pretty much a diary of her life. 

Those are the differences I noticed from my reading those books for College Literature and I would highly recommend them because they show you a totally new perspective of mental illness. 

Review on the Memoir

The book, Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen is a memoir that includes her experiences at McLean Hospital along with her life story of her many medical conditions consisting of borderline personality disorder along with depression. I personally thought that this book wasn't that good because there was a lack of plot line and there wasn't anything interesting within this book. In the beginning, the book seemed real interesting but as you kept on reading, it got boring and dull because the memoir had no interesting plot. I also felt like Kaysen focused on the other girls in the hospital more than herself. If the memoir is about her, she should've focused on her treatment, life and stay at McLean's. I found it interesting figuring out the reason behind why each patient was that the ward along with the many interesting stories that Kaysen experienced at the hospital. I also found it interesting how Kaysen was so intrigued with the floors, her bones, and time. She obsessed over many things that wouldn't seem like such a big deal to "normal" people. I learned what borderline personality disorder was and it seems like they are people who aren't able to deal with change in their lives. They seem like they almost freak out or stand clueless to where to go.

For some odd reason, this book reminds me of many exorcists movies because of that one situation in which Susanna caused harm to herself in order to see her bone structure in her hand. Susanna did a great job describing it that also made is sound demonic in a way. Susanna Kaysen seems like a reliable narrator to me throughout her book. She never seem suspicious about any of the details in the book. Her book flows in order with a few flash backs but it pretty much follows her order of events. 

Somethings I didn't like about this book was that Susanna just told her story and didn't explain her reasoning behind her actions. There also wasn't that much action throughout her life/story and it makes it seem like her life was boring and consists of nothing. Many of the doctor documents didn't seem to be a little hard to read because of the font or format.

If I were asked if this book should be recommended, I would say no because I feel like many of the other books/memoirs read in the unit did a better job exemplifying the author's mental illness. And this book did a dull job at incorporating her life into it. /