The Bell Jar

Author: Sylvia Plath
Genre: Fiction/ Classic

Summer 1953.  Esther Greenwood is living the dream.  She has just won an essay contest and is living in a lavish New York hotel while interning for a month with an upscale fashion magazine.  But something is wrong.  Esther knows she should be having the time of her life, after all she is young, beautiful, talented and successful.  However, in the midst of the big city, she feels "very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo" (Plath).  She stresses about her future after collage, and questions her skills and self worth.
   After returning home to the suburbs, Esther's mental state further deteriorates.  She finds herself unable to sleep, or read, only seeing a mess of letters.  She only goes downhill from there.
   There are more factors that lead to the young woman's downward spiral, butI don't want to give away too much, so I'll stop here.

Incredible book!!  Esther is a very relatable person, based on Sylvia Plath's own experience with depression.  There is no specific point where Esther's sanity begins to unravel; it is a slow process caused the buildup of stressors in her life, something that could happen to anybody.  Her problems are so trivial and everyday, school, work, sex, relationships, parents, friends.  This book can be simply a story about a girl who goes insane, or it can be a deep look into the fragility of the human psyche.  It stays with you.  There's not exactly action, or suspense, but it is still a very real and haunting book.  This is not a particularly "easy" read.  I'm not saying its an incredible difficult level.  But if you make little or no effort to follow her life story, it might be easy to get lost.  There are several flashbacks, especially at the beginning of the book.  These flashbacks are essential, as they set up why her mind comes to break.  If you have an interest in psychology or human behavior, I would highly recommend The Bell Jar to you!

Rating 5/5

WARNING: Potentially disturbing, sometimes the mind can be examined too closely.  Her suicide attempts may also be troubling to some readers.  A lot of reviews talk about how it is "disturbing" but I didn't think there was anything exceptionally traumatic.  As formerly mentioned, this is a rather challenging novel, but it is fulfilling, not simply fluff.  Quite a bit of sexual content, nothing described in too much detail except when Esther loses her virginity and there are a few pages about her hemorrhaging.