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3.31 AVERAGE
3.31 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I had heard so many good things about Belzhar and a range of mixed opinions as well, so I was really looking forward to picking up my copy. I thought it was a fascinating book, that I found easy to devour.
Belzhar centres around a group of very emotionally ‘fragile’ teenagers. They’re sent to a boarding school to help them out with their problems. The group are picked for ‘Special Topics in English’, in which they are made to study Sylvia Path’s The Bell Jar. They find this strange, given their state of mind. However, more strange things begin to happen. As part of the class the students have to keep a journal- as they write in the diary they are transported to a world they refer to as Belzhar. In this world they are no longer affected by their problems. It is in this world that we learn their stories!
I think if you go into reading Belzhar knowing that it includes some magical realism then you will have a much better reading experience. It is a bit of a strange book, yet it’s wonderfully written and I think it’s worth giving it a try even if it is a little weird! It is only after finishing the story that I realise how much this book has made me think. It has some very intriguing characters. It’s incredibly clever. I can’t go into too much depth in a review, because it would be laden with spoilers and no-one wants that.
Belzhar deserves to be read and discussed. It stands out from anything else out there!
Belzhar centres around a group of very emotionally ‘fragile’ teenagers. They’re sent to a boarding school to help them out with their problems. The group are picked for ‘Special Topics in English’, in which they are made to study Sylvia Path’s The Bell Jar. They find this strange, given their state of mind. However, more strange things begin to happen. As part of the class the students have to keep a journal- as they write in the diary they are transported to a world they refer to as Belzhar. In this world they are no longer affected by their problems. It is in this world that we learn their stories!
I think if you go into reading Belzhar knowing that it includes some magical realism then you will have a much better reading experience. It is a bit of a strange book, yet it’s wonderfully written and I think it’s worth giving it a try even if it is a little weird! It is only after finishing the story that I realise how much this book has made me think. It has some very intriguing characters. It’s incredibly clever. I can’t go into too much depth in a review, because it would be laden with spoilers and no-one wants that.
Belzhar deserves to be read and discussed. It stands out from anything else out there!
Finally, a book about a poet other than Emily Dickinson! Belzhar is the Special Topics in English classes code for a place (or alternate reality) that they go to; the name derived from The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's novel. Each has come - or been sent - to The Wooden Barn boarding school because there something they need to work through, some tragedy they need to get over. The five Special Topics students find themselves working through things with the help of Belzhar and the red journals their teacher gives them to use.
It's disappointing that the writing doesn't quite live up to the book - at times the author seems to be talking down to us, and at others it's as though she doesn't like her characters that much. There is a Big Twist at the end, but afterwards it's a letdown because there doesn't seem to be any unexpected payoff (what I mean is, you anticipate xx is going to happen, Big Twist appears, but rather than something new happening, xx happens anyway).
So let's call this 3.5 and move on.
ARC provided by publisher.
It's disappointing that the writing doesn't quite live up to the book - at times the author seems to be talking down to us, and at others it's as though she doesn't like her characters that much. There is a Big Twist at the end, but afterwards it's a letdown because there doesn't seem to be any unexpected payoff (what I mean is, you anticipate xx is going to happen, Big Twist appears, but rather than something new happening, xx happens anyway).
So let's call this 3.5 and move on.
ARC provided by publisher.
Having just recently finished [b:We Were Liars|16143347|We Were Liars|E. Lockhart|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1402749479s/16143347.jpg|21975829], I didn't think any other book could offer quite the same shock factor. Belzhar proved me wrong. Such an amazing story and so well written. Threading the complicated biography of Sylvia Plath into this very modern look at grief and survival was genius. Each character was so likable that you simply ached for them (unlike in We Were Liars where you honestly couldn't find many reasons to like any of them).
The setting is at a remote school in Vermont that shuns the use of cell phones and the internet. This keeps the story very contained, allowing for excellent character development.
Grades 9 and up. Knowing of The Bell Jar is a plus though not necessary to appreciate Belzhar.
The setting is at a remote school in Vermont that shuns the use of cell phones and the internet. This keeps the story very contained, allowing for excellent character development.
Grades 9 and up. Knowing of The Bell Jar is a plus though not necessary to appreciate Belzhar.
This book seems to get a lot of shit here on goodreads. Like was it a masterpiece ?! No! But it was a pretty interesting read!
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
How a writer goes from The Interestings to this is unfathomable. Yet here we are. The writing is so unimaginative and flat that I actually checked to make sure it wasn’t middle grade. The irony is I am the mother of a 15 year old girl who is currently living in residential treatment in a therapeutic boarding school. Nothing about the portrayal of treatment nor illness is real. Just a trite, one dimensional waste of time.
I can’t believe so many people don’t get this book. It was brilliant. The supernatural journals taking the fragile students to their grief, making them choose between living forever in the past or moving forward. Completely beautiful. Best YA novel of the year.
I wished I'd had a Meg Wolitzer novel under my belt prior to reading her first YA Fiction release. There are a bunch things that appeal to me in this story and I wonder how her craft for a younger audience compares to her adult fiction writing. First off, I listened to the Audible version and the narrator is incredible. There are now two narrators that I would listen to anything they did, Colin Firth and this gal, Jorjeana Marie. (Ok, small aside, I looked up how to spell her first name on Amazon and she has actually narrated a lot of terrible looking books. So, never mind.)
Wolitzer has crafted a book that feels like a million little phantom fishes of Amber-girlhood-past nipping at my memories and feelings. Reading and writing were my solace (still are) growing up, a safe space for me to be; I could immerse and let go. I remember reading Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" for the first time when I was 16 or 17 and being very familiar with the isolated feeling of the said, bell jar. Plath was the first woman writer I had experience with to so boldly express her descent into madness, the haunting depression days. Meg has taken Sylvia Plath as the center from which her story grows and helps her teenage subjects find healing from their traumas through writing and literature. A mystery of a book, so smartly written, with language accessible and immediate to young adults. Pretty cool book.
Wolitzer has crafted a book that feels like a million little phantom fishes of Amber-girlhood-past nipping at my memories and feelings. Reading and writing were my solace (still are) growing up, a safe space for me to be; I could immerse and let go. I remember reading Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" for the first time when I was 16 or 17 and being very familiar with the isolated feeling of the said, bell jar. Plath was the first woman writer I had experience with to so boldly express her descent into madness, the haunting depression days. Meg has taken Sylvia Plath as the center from which her story grows and helps her teenage subjects find healing from their traumas through writing and literature. A mystery of a book, so smartly written, with language accessible and immediate to young adults. Pretty cool book.
I haven't actively hated a book in a long time. But Belzhar changed that. The whole book felt very "creative writing assignment" since it was clearly not well researched and makes mockery of adolescent depression and mental illness. The characters are caricatures of human beings and the writing is possibly the most trite I've ever read in a YA novel.
The 'twist' at the end is not only predictable but infuriating because it turns Jam from someone who is genuinely grieving into someone who can be perceived as overreacting and melodramatic. Compared to her classmates' truly traumatic pasts, she's had it easy, relatively speaking.
While the experience of a lost love is different for everyone and can be traumatic, the way Jam deals with Reeve's "loss" is entirely unhealthy and in real life would be indicative of much more serious issues that wouldn't be resolved so quickly. It also sends the message that going into a nigh comatose state for a year is a reasonable reaction for a 15 year old girl whose known a boy for 41 days. Teenage love can be dramatic, but justifying that kind of reaction is not just dramatic, it's dangerous-especially for the young audience this book is aimed at.
The 'twist' at the end is not only predictable but infuriating because it turns Jam from someone who is genuinely grieving into someone who can be perceived as overreacting and melodramatic. Compared to her classmates' truly traumatic pasts, she's had it easy, relatively speaking.
While the experience of a lost love is different for everyone and can be traumatic, the way Jam deals with Reeve's "loss" is entirely unhealthy and in real life would be indicative of much more serious issues that wouldn't be resolved so quickly. It also sends the message that going into a nigh comatose state for a year is a reasonable reaction for a 15 year old girl whose known a boy for 41 days. Teenage love can be dramatic, but justifying that kind of reaction is not just dramatic, it's dangerous-especially for the young audience this book is aimed at.