The story follows Esther Greenwood- very talented and beautiful young lady- through the emotional breakdown and brings her to the point of insanity which, at first, almost sounds irrational just so she can finish in the asylum by the end of the novel. Written with such intensity The Bell Jar shows the darkest corners of a human psyche and doesn't leave anyone apathetic.

If you have someone suffering mental illnesses, I believe The Bell Jar could help you understand how people come to that point. Considering the fact that Esther might be Sylvia itself, you get to read a great insight of disturbed mind and how little it takes to lose your mind completely.

Sylvia Plath's writing style is unique. Whether it's her poetry or prose, it is simply powerful, vivid, and candid. I liked her ability to drive the reader through Esther's depression and later madness so delicately. I read someone someone compared it to "falling down the rabbit's hole" and that's exactly how it felt.

The book has depressive nature and even though it's easy reading (easy as you can read the whole thing in one sitting) it's also very tough. Plath is famous poet and everyone is familiar with her life and how it ended so this just adds to it. It doesn't have a happy ending, as a matter of fact, the ending is uncertain so I got to feel a little bit low for a while.

Sylvia Plath (1932-63) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied at Smith College. In 1955 she went to Cambridge University on a Fulbright fellowship, where she met and later married Ted Hughes. She published one collection of poems in her lifetime, The Colossus (1960), and a novel, The Bell Jar (1963). Her Collected Poems, which contains her poetry written from 1956 until her death, was published in 1981 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Other posthumous publications include Ariel, her landmark publication, Crossing the Water, Winter Trees, Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams and The Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962.

The Bell Jar is one writer's masterpiece that for certainly find the way to reader's hearts one way or another. Many readers loved it, others said the liked it. There were some readers who said they liked it but they don't know why. Anyhow, it shows The Bell Jar won't leave you apathetic.

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Created Nov 30, 2017 at 6:53pm • Submit your own review...