A review by annoyedhumanoid
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

dark reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

the ending was abrupt—if it had to end with our narrator stepping into an unknown future, why couldn't it have been her

leaving the institution for the outside world again

? there was a lot of casual and even some overt racism, which i wanted to believe was an intentional character flaw that readers were meant to disapprove of, but the novel is way too autobiographical for that to be the case.

overall, though, i enjoyed the journey. my overachievement also culminated in a summer spent in new york city for an expenses-paid career incubator program only to realize i'm not cut out for any of it and get rejected for an opportunity i imagined would prove my worth, with incubation becoming intubation in the form of intensive psychiatric care. thank god they don't do electroshock therapy anymore.

I plummeted down past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts, through year after year of doubleness and smiles and compromise, into my own past.

the way the audiobook was divided into forty-minutes chunks as if Sylvia Plath didn't write the book in chapters… and the same haughty piano melody each time… annoying