Thursday, August 17, 2017

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath


Title: The Bell Jar
Author: Sylvia Plath
Pages: 273
Finished: August 17, 2017

First Sentence: It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't even know what I was doing in New York.

Summary: Esther Greenfield talks about the summer she descends into madness and how she gets out again.

Thoughts: I will admit when I picked this book, I wasn't fully excited to read this. It's one I missed out on somehow, but people referred to it as the female Catcher and the Rye. I hated Cather in the Rye. But I wanted to try this.

I loved it. I read it in the span of 24 hours and probably could go again to get a better idea of what I read because I was reading so fast. I couldn't get over Esther's decent. How effortlessly Plath took us through the whole journey that went from, "Hmmm, Why is she so off?" to "Holy shit!" It was so accurate (and from what I've seen is semi-autobiographical). I'm so glad I added this too my list.

Read for the Back to the Classics Challenge

2 comments:

  1. I'm not a fan of Catcher in the Rye either (though it grows on me a little with each reread). Nonetheless, I'm glad to hear you liked this so much. I think I'm going to bump this up on the TBR.

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    Replies
    1. Definitely do. It's been over a decade since I read Catcher, so perhaps I should add it to my list again and see how I react to it.

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