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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/839103.The_Bell_Jar?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Bell Jar" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178810165m/839103.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/839103.The_Bell_Jar?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Bell Jar</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4379.Sylvia_Plath">Sylvia Plath</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4102153?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>i really, really enjoyed this one. i knew i would; everyone recommended it to me and all my bests appreciated it wholeheartedly. i even picked up a paperback copy at a used bookstore years ago and didn't read it until now! <br/> <br/>my bad. this is an awesome novel. it traces the mental breakdown of a college-age girl who seemingly has everything right. you know, grades, awards, scholarships, internships, etc. of course, the bell jar enumerates actual events and characters from the life of sylvia plath. so on some levels, it rings alarmingly true to real experience. i never suffered mental dissolution on this level- but i was always guilty of having the surface "perfect academic life" and the internal riots of doubt and neurosis. thus, i think the thoughts and experiences this book intimates are crucially important to understanding young women, the modern era, overachievers, sexuality in intellectuals, etc. <br/> <br/>you know how you always try to identify with the main character? or even the narrator (if they're separate.) you align some aspect of your personality, your features, even your goals. it always makes the story more real, and i think that for myself it allows me to completely block out my own world and join the story-world. how could you cry at the end of the book if you weren't in story-world? the bell jar, for me, required no effort at all to indentify with the protagonist. <br/> <br/>she's smart, observant, driven, snarky, emotional, creative, introspective; and eventually, neurotic, timorous, questioning, judgemental. she faces all sorts of the same questions i (and most of my peer group) faces. intellectualism or self-satisfied family life? sex or love? the outside world or my mental space? caring about everything or caring about nothing? it is the way esther, the main character, treats these questions that makes her fabulously real and alarmingly close to home. she isn't consistent. she identifies her goals but also recognizes her own behaviors as subverting them. she's her own sharpest critic-- and it that what brings about her mental breakdown? <br/> <br/>i think, too, that i was really touched by her realizations about place-- that the city (new york OF COURSE) is overwhelming. full of people and things and maybe not all of them are worth caring about. but how can one sort out that challenge? the suburbs, by comparison, are small-minded and sleepy, capable only of choking one's brain. other places in the novel-- cities that aren't new york, the mental institution, various hospitals and doctor's offices-- these places seek to enrich the basic dichotomy. they counterpoint and fine-tune, often offering respite or challenges of their own. i think that i'm pretty influenced by places and that my own mentality often aligns place with mental state. would i go crazy if i had to move back and live with my parents in their northern virginia bedroom community? crazy is a relative term, i suppose. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/86611?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>