Original Publication Date: 1963
Rating: 4 Stars
Let me see if I can phrase this correctly. I found The Bell Jar to be both an easy read and a difficult one. Language-wise, the book was easy to read, it flowed; Plath has this way of giving you an entire picture with just a simple few words. However, where I found it difficult to read was the bluntness and the truthfulness of the decent into a world inundated with dark thoughts and depression. To some extent, especially when we're in our late teens, early twenties, I think this is something that everyone struggles with. Trying to find your place in the world is a hard, scary, thing to do and some of us handle it better than others. Plath encapsulated this in her vaguely autobiographical novel. She was really writing about the "Quarter-Life Crisis" 30 or 40 years before the phrase came into vogue, and she did so brilliantly and truthfully.
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