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The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath

Start date: March 1, 2023

Finish date: May 31, 2023

Discussion: Upcoming Books: No Spoilers

Why we're reading this: Revisit the Shelf Reread, March 2023

Revisit the Shelf Reread, April 2016

Previous Reads:
New School Classi…more
[close] Revisit the Shelf Reread, March 2023

Revisit the Shelf Reread, April 2016

Previous Reads:
New School Classic Group Read, December 2014

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What Members Thought

Mar 13, 2010 Gaijinmama rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, classics

I have conflicting feelings about this book. On the one hand, it deserves its place as a classic if only for the author's keen sense of observation and way with words. She also had a sense of humor...Sylvia Plath, who knew!!

On the other hand, that's the tragedy. I was almost too pissed off to finish. What a horrible waste of a gifted writer who was actually an interesting person. I am left sad and angry, just absolutely furious that Plath lived at a time when a woman with her skills was not appr ...more

17 likes · Like · see review

Aug 25, 2008 Carrie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, favorites, mental-illness, 4-and-a-half-to-5-stars, need-to-re-read, 2024-books-to-read, read-my-shelves

*Feb: 8th time for me to do a reread and annotate soon I'm thinking.*

Great book, I love flow of the writing. ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

Sep 23, 2010 Laura rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, gutenberg, e-books, american-fiction, suicide, 1000-guardian, health-issues, mtbr-challenge-2016, modern-classics, fiction-20th-century

By describing the story of Esther Greenwood, certainly the author reflects her own personal history. And unforgettable and magnificent book.

Free download available at Faded Page.

From BBC Radio 4;
Sylvia Plath's haunting and only novel is fifty years old and is broadcast for the first time in celebration of the anniversary. The novel tells the story of Esther Greenwood, a talented girl with a prestigious internship on a magazine in New York in 1953. With dreams of becoming a writer and an impressi ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Jul 14, 2014 Heather L rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: group-read, classics, 2014

Excellent writing, but quite depressing. I finished at about 9:30 last night, and was wishing I had finished about two hours earlier, so as to take a long walk and clear my head before bed. As it was, I slept poorly and woke during the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep for more than two hours.

1 like · Like · see review