The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath #2

What I really liked about this book was that it was super easy to read, and it was interesting. I started reading it at work one night cause, well, I was bored. And before I knew it, I was a hundred pages through. It took me two and a half shifts at work to read it, and I'm so happy I did. It was a great book.
The second half of the novel was a lot different than the first part. I'd like to point out that before I started reading this novel I didn't know what a bell jar was. Thankfully I looked it up before I got to the point where it actually mentions it in the book and I knew what it was talking about. If I were ever to get stuck inside a bell jar and feel disconnected to the world, I'm really not sure what I would do. It seems like a terrible place to be, and returning from that place isn't easy. The thing that shocked me the most was when I learned that the book was parallel to Plath's own life, and it mimicked her decent into madness as well as Esther's. She committed suicide just months after the book was published, and the reason this book is probably so powerful because it was written with some truth behind it. The book actually contains many references to real people in Plath's life, of course with their names changed and things like that.
Esther is a really messed up girl, and she just keeps getting worse and worse as the novel progresses. The part of the book that got to me the most was when she said she just wanted to lose her virginity so she could get even with Buddy, the guy she had been dating off and on. It didn't seem like something any girl who was in her right mind would do. I don't know, I think that was one of the indications that let me know she wasn't all there. Also, how she keeps trying over and over to lose it and when she finally does she ends up bleeding all over the place. Being a girl, it just wasn't something that was very pleasant to read. I can't imagine one of my friends showing up on my doorstep with a bloody towel hanging from between her legs because she lost her virginity to some guy she just met and ended up hemorrhaging.
This novel was very easy to read, but it was also full of some very heavy stuff. Especially in the end when Esther's friend commits suicide and gets found in a tree outside the hospital she's admitted to. It caught me by surprise because she seemed genuinely happy, but apparently not. I guess you can't really judge anyone by what you see on the outside. Because after all, you never really know what's going on inside someone's head.