One of NPR’s 2025 “Books We Love,” *Unshrunk* is a powerful and compelling memoir that offers an unflinching look into one woman’s journey through psychiatric diagnoses, medication, and self-discovery. Praised by critics and readers alike, this book sheds light on the often-overlooked realities of mental health treatment in contemporary America, making it an essential read for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of mental health and the pharmaceutical industry.
At age fourteen, Laura Delano’s life took a dramatic turn when she saw her first psychiatrist, who immediately diagnosed her with bipolar disorder and prescribed a mood stabilizer along with an antidepressant. Despite her academic achievements—being elected class president, earning straight-A grades, and holding a national squash ranking—she struggled intensely at home, experiencing rage, despair, and obsessive thoughts about death. Her outward success contrasted sharply with her internal turmoil, highlighting the profound impact of her diagnosis.
Delano’s journey spanned over thirteen years, during which she sought help from top psychiatrists and hospitals across the country. She accumulated a long list of diagnoses and a cascade of nineteen different drugs. Initially resistant, she eventually accepted her diagnosis and embraced the pharmaceutical regimen, believing it was necessary to manage her “incurable, lifelong disease.” However, her symptoms only worsened, and doctors declared her condition “treatment resistant.” A series of disturbing events left her demoralized but also sparked a critical question: Could her life be falling apart not despite her treatment, but because of it?
This realization led Delano to make a bold decision—to leave behind her medications and diagnoses. Her choice to unlearn everything she had been told about herself and to venture into the terrifying unknown of an unmedicated life marked a turning point. *Unshrunk* weaves her medical records and doctors’ notes with an investigation into modern psychiatry and illuminating research on the drugs she was prescribed. The book critically examines the dominant role that the American mental health industry, and the pharmaceutical industry in particular, play in shaping perceptions of what it means to be human.
Critics have lauded *Unshrunk* for its honesty and insight. Casey Schwartz of The New York Times Book Review described it as “compelling, important and even haunting,” comparing it to *Girl, Interrupted* for the age of the prescription pill. Carl Elliott of The Wall Street Journal called it “an unsparing account,” emphasizing that Delano’s struggles are “depressingly commonplace in 21st-century America,” yet rarely described with such insight and self-awareness. The book has also received endorsements from prominent figures such as Anna Lembke, MD, a New York Times bestselling author of *Dopamine Nation*, who called it “a must read for anyone probing the dark side of mental health treatment,” and Johann Hari, author of *Stolen Focus*, who described it as “a really moving and heart-rending story” that will “help and empower so many people.”