This was a very hard read for me, I’ve struggled with depression, anxiety and been through only a tiny amount of the authors experiences, but enough I couldn’t finish this at the moment, it’s too close for me at the moment, but I’d definitely encourage it to anyone for a better understanding and I will return to this one day when I’m able to myself as it was very well written and interesting, just too close to the bone for me at this time, so that tells me how very honest and real the author is.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

This was a fascinating and honest look into the author’s experience of their admission to a psych ward. The writing was incredible - lyrical yet to the point, and it allowed us to really climb into their head and feel everything they were feeling.

Although a tough subject, I felt like I was sitting next to them as they told me their story. I feel the characters and stories will stay with me for a long time. Brilliant book.

W-3 is a fascinating, poignant and thought-provoking memoir of Bette Howland’s suicide attempt, subsequent time spent in a psychiatric facility in the 1970s and the vivid account of a brilliant mind on the brink. In 1968, Bette Howland was thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and labouring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer. One afternoon, while staying at her friend Saul Bellow’s apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills. W-3 is both an extraordinary portrait of the community of Ward 3, the psychiatric wing of the Chicago hospital where she was admitted; and a record of a defining moment in a writer’s life. The book itself would be her salvation: she wrote herself out of the grave. For its brevity, this is a remarkably powerful memoir with a cast of characters - Trudy, Zelma and Frankie - who are beautifully painted but exhibiting the type of behaviour you would expect in such a place.

Howland writes in such a tender, scalpel-sharp fashion using pin-eye perceptiveness to bring to life the institution and those around her; surprisingly she explores her own situation much less than I had anticipated giving a broad view of the situation within the ward. She narrates the steady passage of time as a patient charting her friendships with those who also reside there and matters as straightforward as their moods, attire, families, yearnings and objections. There's heart and soul, humanity and humour packed within these pages in a feat of daring imagination and a refreshingly original examination of mental illness written in a frank, touching and admirably candid fashion given the stigma attached to it as a taboo at the time. A mesmerising, spirited and omnipotent piece of writing about institutions penned with sardonicism and deftness of touch, and despite its relative age it is still as timely and relevant today as it was then. Highly recommended.

W-3 is a psychiatric ward in a university hospital. Bette Howland was one of the patients on the ward in 1968, after an attempted overdose. This follows her time in on W-3 and the other patients there. W-3 was originally published in 1974, but is now being published for the first time in the UK.

This is called a memoir but to me, this is not a memoir. The book hardly focuses on Bette herself, being told in a detached way. It was about everyone else on the psychiatric ward and not herself. I thought I would find this book really interesting as a psychology student that wants to work in mental health, but this just didn't really work for me. It focuses on describing other patients goings on, but I wanted more about why Howland and the other patients were there rather than the more mundane aspects that were discussed. Due to this I unfortunately didn't feel moved like the reviews.

This book is well written and I think it is really admirable and courageous to write about such a personal experience, especially at the time when this was first published in the 70s. If you are looking for a well written and detailed look into the goings on in a psychiatric ward in the 60s this will be a book for you.

2.5

Interesting true story of the author Bette Howland, who ends up on a psychiatric ward in a hospital. The ward is called W-3 - hence the title of the book.
If you have little experience of psychiatric wards, this will open your eyes in many ways. From the start, when a single mother takes an overdose as a cry for help, to the other inhabitants of the ward,, why they are there, and what they're going through, through to her recovery.
It's a fascinating story, which will evoke equal measures of compassion and revulsion in parts.

It reminds me in some ways of the autobiography written by the actress Frances Farmer: Will There Really Be A Morning? Sadly that book in now out of print, but a worthwhile book to hunt down if you enjoy this book (although I'm not "enjoy" is quite the right word for books like this)