How Accurate Is 'Girl, Interrupted' To The Book?

After fifteen years away, I was finally brought back to the DeLuca family. I thought I was returning to my real home. Instead, I walked into a house where the adopted daughter wanted me dead, my father treated me like a burden, and my brothers would rather watch me bleed than make her cry. On my first day back, she set dogs on me. That night, I was dragged to the top of the observatory and forced to apologize to her. When I fell from the tower covered in blood, they still called me a liar. Because in the DeLuca family, I may have been the real daughter by blood— but she was the daughter they loved. She thought she could bully me, poison me, and freeze me to death without consequence. She was wrong. Because the night I nearly died, my mother finally chose me—and turned a gun on the whole DeLuca family.

In my previous life, the fake daughter Linda Veil wanted the billionaire family all to herself. She manipulated my adopted brother Jason with her two-faced act, sabotaging me at every turn. All I ever wanted was family. Instead, they came to despise me, and shipped me off to the African savannah to fend for myself. Before the plane even landed, Mom and Dad threw me out from low altitude, hatred written all over their faces. "Stay out there and learn your lesson. Let's see if you ever dare hurt your sister again!" "We'll come get you once you've straightened up." Both my legs shattered on impact. I lay in the grass, sobbing that I was sorry, begging them to believe me. But the sun cracked my skin open and wild animals stripped me to the bone. They never came back for me. Right before I died, I finally learned the truth. Sending me to the savannah had been Linda's idea all along. She'd spent three hundred million commissioning a lifelike robot to replace my dead body. Mom and Dad watched the cameras every day, seeing a lively, healthy "robot me" going about life. They had no idea I was already gone. And Linda? She married my adopted brother, poisoned my parents slowly, and inherited every last penny of the Veil fortune, handing it all to her human-trafficking birth parents. Then I opened my eyes again. I'd been reborn, back to the day the billionaire family first took me home. This time around, I'd worked ten jobs at once to survive and developed a serious mental illness. Whoever messed with me got the full crazy treatment.

After the SATs, my niece’s essay went viral online. It was titled: The Pains of Living in Someone Else’s Home. During her freshman year, my niece, Kristen, had moved in with us. Afraid that she might not settle in well, I made sure she got everything my own daughter, Gabrielle, had. I bought them all the same things. However, ten days after the SATs, Kristen’s essay went viral, and a target was painted on my back. [Why did you abuse me when my parents send you money for my living expenses every month? Why did you make me feel like vermin living in your house?] In the end, because Kristen accidentally revealed our location, I was nearly killed in a car crash perpetrated by a self-righteous netizen. Gabrielle was doxxed and bullied online. In the end, she broke down and committed suicide. Before I died, I went back in time. When I opened my eyes, I found myself back on the day of the SATs. Kristen and Gabrielle were holding hands as they walked out of the school.

My fiancé's junior colleague went around the hospital every day calling herself "the best girl". When a patient with acute appendicitis was admitted, she mistakenly prescribed laxatives instead of proper treatment. The patient nearly went into shock and died. After the hospital was reported by the patient's family, she simply smiled and said, "I don't even need a supervising doctor to prescribe medication anymore. I'm such a good girl!" On another occasion, she failed to order routine pre-op blood work for a surgical patient. During the procedure, a visiting senior surgeon was exposed and later contracted HIV. She actually puffed out her chest and said, "Even if everyone had to stay up all night helping me save the doctor, I'm still the best girl!" I protested more than once and urged my fiancé to dismiss her. He refused every time. He brushed it off with a laugh, saying "this good girl" just needed time and experience. Then, a prominent patient was transferred from a military hospital for surgery. She secretly tampered with the medical records, switching the pathology findings from the left lung to the right. She even revised the surgical plan, recommending removal of the patient's completely healthy right lung. Luckily, I caught the mistake in time, restored the correct pathology report, and performed the surgery successfully. After the patient recovered, he asked for our team to be recognized. To my disbelief, Elena Bakers ran to my fiancé in tears. "I wrote the entire report by myself! All by myself! I'm the best little girl! "Why do you always take credit away from me? It took so much courage for this little girl to be brave just once! "You're all horrible!" Elena stormed out of the hospital and was struck and killed by a car on the spot. My fiancé did not say a word. However, on the very day I was appointed hospital director, he produced falsified evidence accusing me of altering records and causing multiple medical accidents to advance my career. I was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. As the verdict was delivered, he looked at me with unmistakable satisfaction. "You'll never make up for what you owe Elena. Not in this lifetime." When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day Elena altered the surgical plan.

From the day I was born, Mom never treated me like her daughter. I was Catherine Baldwin's older sister, the example Mom used to keep her in line. When Catherine stole ten dollars from Mom's purse to buy stickers, Mom made me stand facing the living room wall all afternoon. Then she pointed at me and told Catherine, "Look at Allison. For every dollar you steal, she stands there for an hour. You do the math." When Catherine refused to eat her vegetables, Mom stopped giving me breakfast for three days. I got so hungry that I snuck into the kitchen and ate cold leftovers straight from the fridge. When Mom caught me, she didn't yell. She simply turned to Catherine and said, "See how hungry Allison is? Keep being picky, and you'll be the one who goes without food next time." When Catherine started dating in middle school, and a teacher caught her passing notes to a boy in class, Mom sent me to the school in her place. She made me stand in the main office and read Catherine's written apology aloud in front of the teachers. Halfway through, my voice gave out. Mom snatched the paper from my hands and finished reading it herself, slowly and clearly, making sure everyone heard every word. Afterward, she pulled me into the hallway and said, "Catherine has a reputation to protect. I couldn't let her be humiliated in front of her teachers. You're her sister. It's your job to take the fall for her." I was 15, and Catherine was 13. By then, I had already been punished for her, gone hungry for her, and humiliated myself for her. It took me years to realize that was only the beginning. The worst was yet to come.

I broke up with my boyfriend the year he was at his poorest. A year later, he was famous, and he married a prettier, livelier girl than me. On a late-night show, a host asked him whether a grand slam of awards this early in his career left any regrets. He pulled Mia closer. "I want to know how she's been. Since she left me." The host paused. "She's been... not well at all." Adrian finally smiled. "Then I can stop thinking about her." "But Ms. Whitman left behind a box of tapes before she died." Adrian's smile locked into place. On the tapes were every day and every night of my life, from the day I walked away from him to the day I stopped breathing.