Sylvia Plath

Follows step-by-step for one month as Esther Greenwood's strained relations with her mother and her boyfriend leads her to a mental breakdown.

The Bell Jar

Melanie

Neurotic, ha!" I let out a scornful laugh. "If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then Im neurotic as hell. I’ll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days."  

Maia 

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig-tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a h and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other overs with queer names and off-beat professions, and another f was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out”

Plath writes with a tight pointed style which manages to make sinking into insanity seem natural.

Arie P

Swept me off my feet and into a fascinating, disorienting world. 

Swept me off my feet and into a fascinating, disorienting world. 

A grappling read.

The Bell Jar

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