Finally!

Hey, guys!

What did I tell you? Just finished The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath this morning. I know it probably took longer than it should have since the book was only just under two hundred and fifty pages, but like I said before, last week was a doozy.

So, The Bell Jar is the story of Esther Greenwood. She is an English major entering her senior year at a prestigious girls' college on a scholarship and the story starts with her trip to New York, courtesy of a women's fashion magazine (you know, for job experience and probably job searching).

As you can see, despite her relative lack of wealth, Esther is privy to much opportunity. Educated, employed. Not to mention being courted by Buddy Willard, a medical student whom Esther had her eye on. For a while, he didn't even spare him a glance, but now his mother is expecting Esther to be her soon to be daughter-in-law.

But once she gets to know him, Esther realizes how hypocritical, smug, and arrogant Buddy really is. And how concerned with image her mother is. After her trip to New York and after being turned down for a prestigious and grueling writing course is when Esther stops sleeping. And eating. And reading and writing and caring.

It's also when she becomes fascinated with death.

So, yes, The Bell Jar is a story about depression and mental illness and women. It was a little hard to get into at first since I was plunked into a story about a young woman interning for a fashion magazine and taking advantage of the New York night life. I was actually warned about the beginning of the book by one of my friends, that the beginning was a bit of a strange start and hard to get into.

Aside from that, The Bell Jar is well-written and an intriguing story about social expectations and misconceptions about mental illness (especially in women) and treatment of mental health patients during the time period (the book was written during the seventies). The book also reveals, of course, the challenge that sufferers of depression face every day, from pretending they are all right to thoughts of suicide to the ordeals of treatments at asylums.

The Bell Jar is a novel, so it is fictitious. But Sylvia Plath did suffer from depression and took her own life in 1963 at the age of thirty. So, although the events in the book didn't really happen (as far as I know), the book is written in such a way as to sound personal and practically autobiographical.

And suffice it to say that it is a good book; the same friend who warned me about the beginning also told me to power through the strange beginning because it is a good book that is worth the read.

I would recommend Plath's novel to those who are coming of age, particularly high school and college students. The age group differs because my brother read it (well, half of it) in high school before I had even touched it and it didn't appeal to him; he said it was confusing. So, I think that it really depends on the reader.

This is not the first book I read about depression and women sufferers in particular. I have actually already written an outline for a review on Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, so if you guys would like me to post that review, I would be more than happy to . . . even if you guys didn't say anything of the like, I will post it anyway.

Anyway, definitely give The Bell Jar a chance just to see if you like it. Go ahead. I dare you.

Check in again either tomorrow or in the next couple of days and I will post a review for Willow Weep for Me, perhaps another book, and maybe a list or two.

Happy reading!!