A Year of Reading

Since finishing The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, I have struggled with my experience. The story is a first-person account chronicling a young woman’s descent into mental illness and her subsequent recovery. It starts off as a typical coming of age book from the female perspective with struggles of relationships, collegiate studies, and internships. When an attack triggers an emotional down spiral, the author’s descriptions draw readers fully into the young woman’s experiences with mental health treatment of the 1960’s. Since my age is relatively close to that of the main character, to me the book read like a long, sad letter. Seeing the pain and confusion she experienced resulted in my becoming over-involved in the story and taking her pain onto me instead of viewing it objectively from afar.

If your personal “care-o-meter” is highly sensitive (like mine), I recommend great caution with this book. Read at your own mental health risk & have a literary antidote available.