The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel and is partially based on her own life. Set in 1953, Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine. She thinks that this is the break she has been waiting for and will be her passport to becoming a writer. She endeavours to throw herself into the lifestyle of her colleagues, which revolves around cocktail parties and fashion shows, but she never seems to be fully present wherever she is. She writes furiously, but nobody takes her work seriously. Esther struggles to find meaningful relationships and seems to veer between wanting to be like the people she mixes with, and in the next breath, loathing them. She slowly becomes more detached from reality and sinks into depression, for which the treatment she eventually receives is brutal - ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy). This book is a study of someone living with a mental illness. While you feel a certain empathy for Esther, she is a tough character to like. I found the novel disjointed and bitty and hard to get to grips with - which added to the feeling of disconnect with the world that the lead character is experiencing. Not a novel that can be enjoyed, but one that can be admired as an attempt to show something of the experience of someone living with depression.
My STAR rating: THREE.
Length: 240 print pages.
Formats: print, audio CD, audio download, ebook.
Price I paid: free, borrowed from library.
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