The Mad Girls of New York by Maya Rodale

Riveting historical fiction based on the journalist Nellie Bly, who spent ten days confined at Blackwell's Insane Asylum for Women in 1887.

The story is real and the descriptions of those days in the asylum still cause me anxiety when I imagine what it was like and how it would feel to be sent there. Hopeless. What Nellie endured to expose that hideous place as it truly was is nothing short of extremely courageous. The fact that so many women were labeled as lunatics and locked away for the rest of their lives is deplorable history, but it happened.

Having read 10 Days in a Madhouse written by Nellie Bly back when I was in high school, I was again intrigued by her story and wanted to revisit it during this particular time when mental health is getting a much needed focus. Reading about the blatant mistreatment of women during those days still angered me as well as made me truly appreciate what she and many other women have done over the past hundred plus years to create a new narrative for all women. But, honestly, in my heart, I still feel that we have not come far enough. Yes, there have been strides in what is claimed by some to be equality, but sometimes when I read the news, hear about new laws or proposed changes, I think that we are not fully there yet.

I know that great improvements have been made in the treatment of the mentally ill, but yet there are still so many who are suffering without any access to the care that could help them. Despite evidence, some continue to believe that psychological illness is not a disease and there is often negative stigma attached to those seeking relief.

This story was a great reminder that outrageous injustice still exists and that we cannot wait for another Nellie Bly but must step up ourselves to affirm and support any methods that will improve the lives of, not just women, but all humanity.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishers for this e-book ARC to read, review, and recommend. 

This is a standalone and is not part of any series.

Genre - historical fiction, mental illness, Gilded Age (1887)