The book Ten Days a Madwoman is a story based on a real life journalist Nellie Bly that took place in 1887. The book overall talks about Nellie Bly’s interesting experience on spending 10 days in a madhouse(asylum)-as a mentally normal person-due to her ambition to reveal the truth. Throughout the book many social issues were with the most remarkable one being gender discrimination. This book also presents two central ideas, ambition and hard work leads to success, and some things are worth risking.  (summary)

Author: Deborah Noyes born in1965(Now 58 Years Old) writes both for adults and children. She is also know to be an editor and photographer. Her short fictions and books have appeared in many reviews and publications.

Nellie Bly is a really ambitious person. Throughout the story her 2 biggest ambition was to get a better job in New York, and document the real situation in a madhouse.

Throughout achieving her first ambition, she came alongside a severe social issue which was gender discrimination. From my day 1 and 2 reading it made me feel like she would never get a job, however it was only after very hard trying, she finally found a report job for her at the end of chapter 2. It was all thanks to her hard trying and strong ambition. However the most stunning point from that part was a quote “we would not feel at liberty to call her at one o’clock in the morning… we never hesitate with a man.” This quote strongly demonstrated the extreme level of inequality during that time which for sure alarmed the reader.

Compared to her first ambition, her second ambition was rather strange(it is literally called Strange Ambition). She wanted to get herself into a madhouse and document the real situation going on in there, but she again faced a problem, she can’t. Getting into a madhouse as a normal person was hard, so she purposely lied to the doctors, made herself look insane, and finally was put into an asylum and was scheduled to be freed in 10 days by her reporter partner outside. This action is extremely risky however since if her cover gets blown, not only will she face jail time, charges, she can actually risk her mental health and so much more. However being her she decided it was all worth and it was okay for her to lie for a greater cause. As the story continues later on, risking is worth it sometimes can be counted as another central idea.

What is really fascinating about these story is that they are extremely relatable in real life. For instance the government nor the outside world knew that the patients were actually treated horribly in the madhouse. They were chocked, beaten, given horrible food instead of receiving proper treatment and care. It is also terrifying when the reader thinks back and wonder what could possibly happen if Nellie Bly did not go in there and take out all the truth. Would this have made a difference or will another person find out? Overall this book gives large amounts of suspense over time as someone reads through it. Alongside high understanding skills is recommended because otherwise it may be hard to get the actual point of certain parts such as this painting below. Personally recommended but also should be read with detail and re-reads.

Extra Research Citation:

–https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/deborah-noyes/ten-days-a-madwoman/

–https://deborahnoyes.com/about

–https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nellie-Bly