ssai_1998 's review for:

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

4.0

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I am not sure if I would have liked this book as much as I did had I not known what Plath was talking about, but this book I find is amazing in the sense that it is able to recreate...(?) the feelings you have when you are depressed. Esther is a woman desperate for love, while at the same time believing that it will never come (themes of hopelessness). I also really liked her description of cutting (or, trying) because Plath was able to put into words what I (and most of us, probably) couldn't. Look at this:

"I thought it would be easy, lying in the tub and seeing the redness flower from my wrists, flush after flush through the clear water, till I sank to sleep under a surface gaudy as poppies.

But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenseless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get at."

If you've had experiences with mental illness and believe that reading a book about suicide won't be triggering, go ahead and read this! It's great!