Book Review: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

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Book Review: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

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This book helps

This was not what I expected but everything I wanted. It reminded eerily of “Girl Interrupted,” which confirms some of my thoughts about Plath suffering from a borderline personality disorder alongside with depression. This book takes a dark, realistic turn and I loved it. I liked the main character but that’s also most likely due to the fact that this entire book is based on Sylvia’s Plath life in her early 20s. At first, I thought the similarities were odd and striking but then I went back to her published journals and realized “The Bell Jar” is oddly a fictionalized (not really fictionalized) version of her life and people she knew, places she’s work at and the depression and suicide attempts she went through. Regardless, I loved her fictional, story-line of her real life and we actually get the inner workings of her mind when she went in the asylum, which corresponds to 1-2 years where she did not journal so it feels like most of my questions on that end were solved, explained in “The Bell Jar.” This book will always hold a special place in my heart and mind.

“Those we love never truly leave us, Harry. There are things that death cannot touch.” 

“In every shining moment of happiness is that drop of poison: the knowledge that pain will come again. Be honest to those you love, show your pain. To suffer is as human as to breathe.” 

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