A review by teen_writing_101
Ariel by Sylvia Plath

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

This is genuinely one of my favourite books ever. I read and enjoyed The Bell Jar, but it definitely wasn't one of my Top Books Of All Time. This, however, is SOC levels of 'I'm not going to shut up about this ever'. Reading Plath's poetry feels a little like looking in a mirror - I don't think I've ever felt so beautifully seen. I don't profess to have totally Gotten all of the poems, because each one is packed with so much meaning that you'd have to spend half an hour reading an analysing it to do it justice, but the themes of loneliness and being a just a bit titchy bit mentally ill resonated a bit too much and there was just so much meaning - I love poems which I can analyse to death and this was one of those collections where practically every poem I could have written an essay on. I just wish that Plath could have been less problematic - a few of the poem's have anti-Black lines/themes and two or three are basically Holocaust trauma porn which,,, didn't sit right with me at all. 'Daddy' never needed to be written, no matter how objectively good it was (it wasn't even that good compared to the ones where she so kindly decided not to use Jewishness as a metaphor for weakness and suffering). Ultimately, this is one of the best poetry collections I've ever read in terms of Objective Literary Quality and I'm now officially a Sylvia Plath girlie but I can't say I'd recommend this in that it doesn't feel right to recommend something which is so blatantly racist and, being written in the 1960s, in the midst of the civil rights movement, can't really use the 'it's of it's time!' excuse without having at least some level some mental gymnastics involved.