I received this book as a part of ER, and I haven't read the original version. While I appreciate the pared down, easy to read version, I also worry that Frankl's work would be diminished. Anytime we can get this powerful book into people's hands, I'll take it, however, let's make sure we read the original work too. ( )

Maybe I just wasn't in a receptive mood for this book. It's been on my TBR for years, and many people I respect and love say that it changed their lives. I, however, did not feel like it had the impact I was expecting.

The book is a blending of Frankl's memoir of his time in Nazi concentration camps and his psychiatric theories about how humans construct meaning.

I'll revisit it in the future. ( )

This is an excellent book. I'd even go so far as to recommend this young readers edition over the original. The main text, the memoir of Frankl's experiences in the concentration camps, is left intact. Only the logotherapy text at the end is abridged (and thankfully so, as it's useful in its unabridged form only to those studying the history of psychology).
This memoir is different from other popular Holocaust survivor memoirs because Frankl goes deeper into the questions about why people acted the way they did and the various effects of the war on the human psyche.
Highly recommend. ( )

Usually when a classic is remade for young people it is watered down and material is taken away; but with Man's Search for Meaning: Young Adult Edition, there is more to the story as we not only see the psychologist Viktor Frankl survive the horrors of the concentration camp but also waht happened to him afterward. It is in turns, horrorifying and beautiful. The photographs ground the story in hard, painful reality while his words find ways to still find life worth living. ( )

I am not sure what I expected when I picked up this book, but I did not expect memories and observations of life in a concentration camp by a survivor who happened to be a psychologist. It was a good read—some of the thoughts just hit like a ton of bricks and cannot be escaped. The tone was almost off the cuff, but the material was chilling. One quite casual remark just haunts me; the author said that the people who survived were not “the best among us”. He talked about a shell that prisoners had to develop; that they needed dehumanizing blinders in order to survive the horrors they saw daily—the people who clung to their humanity did not live long. Scary stuff.
One point the author made was very timely (even though he died several years ago). He said he strongly believed that the Statue of Liberty on our east coast should have a counterpart on the wet coast: the Statue of Responsibility. I found that an interesting opinion from someone who had suffered so much. He had even mentioned the difficulty that some survivors experienced as they tried to reenter society: that some carried a grudge—felt that they were owed everything because of everything that had been taken from them. He felt that despite their anger they were not beyond “repair”. He talked about how each person decides how happy or unhappy he shall be and that the decision hinged upon whether the person “wants” or whether he “gives”. The idea was that people who live for the good of others have “purpose” and that “purpose” is the meaning that we unwittingly search for. The Statue of Responsibility would be the reminder that we need to look outside ourselves.
It was mentioned that this is required reading for high school and college and there are numerous ideas that could be explored, but it is thought provoking for everyone. ( )