Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - The Bell Jar

Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

609 reviews

katanai's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

2.75

i think the last quarter of this book really boosted my rating. honestly, there were several times i put this book down & considered placing it in DNF. the racist remarks were something that i was utterly unprepared for & they had no place in this book. it was just odd how racist & homophobic plath was. anyway, besides that, the first half of this book was quite boring, & i felt as if her descent into madness was a little out of nowhere. but then, sometimes, that's how madness happens, unfortunately. i did tear up at some points during her stay at the mental health institutions but i think i just got triggered due to personal connection to people who have been at institutes. also, the protagonist was just... unlikeable & not in a good way. i can see why it's a classic, but at the same time, i think it is a little overhyped. glad to just finally be done.

Content Warnings

whatsmomreading's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Esther Greenwood is in New York on an internship for a women’s magazine, she’s broken out of her small hometown, made it to university and she has the interest of a well to do college student whose set to be a doctor. While to outsiders everything appears to be perfect for Esther, inside she’s slowly succumbing to a deep depression. She feels no joy, no love for writing, no enthusiasm for her internship. Esther can’t seem to make up her mind as to which direction her life will go and in the 50’s there were so few options for women. When she returns home to find she didn’t make the summer writing program she applied to it sends her off the deep end and into a stay at the asylum.

This book made me so uncomfortable in how realistically Plath was able to write about depression and it makes sense as she based this book around her own life. I could feel myself sinking into that familiar fog, where you feel nothing and everything all at once so all you can do is freeze. At the time the choices for women were so limited and all roads eventually pointed to marriage and a family, which would end any career dreams they had.

I found myself thinking about how now we can “have it all” but in so many ways we still can’t AND we still face the pressures of marriage & babies in the modern day. If you don’t get married and have kids something is wrong, if you have kids there’s always questions about when you’ll have more, if you have kids and go back to work you’re a bad mom, if you stay home with the kids then you’re taking the “easy” way out.

The fig analogy broke my heart as I’ve felt the same way many times. Everything is just within my grasp but I still can’t decide. But I also found it inspiring to remember I don’t have to have everything figured out and there’s still so much time to chase my dreams.

Content Warnings