erboe501 's review for:

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark

4.0

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I really connected with some of Plath's journal entries from college when a friend gifted me her collected diaries in school. I read The Bell Jar years ago as well. I only knew the vague outlines of her biography, so this book was fascinating. It was heartbreaking to read how conflicted she felt about career and motherhood, virginity and sex, all of these damning expectations the 50s and 60s placed on women. I stepped away from this book with a sense of how suffocating this time period was for ambitious women. How different could her life have been if she didn't have to deal with those strictures, and also had modern medicine's understanding about mental illness and treatments? I also found it sort of wild how many boys she was dating at once throughout her school days. Even when she was all but engaged to one boy or another, she was sure to go on many other dates with different boys. I was also struck by how she would repeatedly build up some upcoming adventure (like a vacation or new job) with huge expectations, then always be disappointed and dissatisfied with wherever she was.