Reviewed by bumblingbookworm on
I should preface what I'm about to say with a bit of a disclaimer: I've never read The Bell Jar. As a book that features in Belzhar in more ways than one, I think my experience reading Belzhar would've been different had I previously read The Bell Jar. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I have a feeling a lot of the allegory aspects involving The Bell Jar went RIGHT over my head.
Ah Belzhar... What can I say, this was a different book for me - I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it. I had some difficulties reading this, and a lot of that stemmed from my inability to connect with Jam. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring myself to like her, no matter how hard I tried! She would say or do things and I'd be all "but WHY?" I had a lot of difficulty relating to her, especially her coping mechanisms for dealing with her grief. The book is a bit of a slow burn, so we don't find everything out straight away. By the time I got to the big reveal about Reeve, I was just like WTF.
Check out the rest of my review here!
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 7 October, 2014: Finished reading
- 7 October, 2014: Reviewed