Thursday, April 6, 2017

Reading Through the Classics: The Bell Jar

TITLE: The Bell Jar
AUTHOR: Sylvia Plath
PUBLISHED: 1963
CATEGORY: Adult/YA (I think it fits both really)
GENRE: Realistic Fiction
PREMISE: A young girl on the brink of adult hood slowly starts to have a mental breakdown....
MY THOUGHTS: Yes, somehow I escaped reading this book in high school. It just never came up in one of my classes and high school me was very much not interested. But again, one of my online groups had this for their book of the month for March and so I finally got around to it.
This is again, one I wished I studied in a classroom environment. Because I suspect there are a lot of things in this that went over my head without knowing much about Slyvia Plath. I knew enough to get the general importance of it though. This book was written during a time when mental health (especially women's mental health) probably wasn't talked about all that often.
I wouldn't go into this one looking for light entertainment. It's pretty heavy subject matter. Also several of the characters will likely annoy you. Esther's boyfriend in this seriously became my new hated literary figure.
The writing in this however, is gorgeous. You can really tell Plath is a poet. I definitely will be checking out her poetry next year when I start my journey into poetry (I was planning on doing it this year, but decided plays and poetry at the same time was probably a bit much). Probably will be reading her unabridged journals at some point too...
WHO SHOULD READ: those who like angsty reads, if you're interested in books about mental health, Slyvia Plath fans

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