One of the many great attributes of being a member of a book club is the opportunity to sit with a novel for a solid few months. There's also the access to an intellectual community and friends to nerd out about literary things with. When my book club voted to read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath in January, I prepared myself for meetings that would undoubtedly dive into the range of deeper themes in the novel: depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide, just to name a few. The book begins in New York City with protagonist Esther Greenwood, a nearly-graduated college student currently undergoing an editing internship. There is a distinct shift in the narrative that seems to occur after Esther is sexually assaulted at a party, returns home for the rest of the summer, finds out she did not get accepted into a writing class she'd placed a lot of hope in, and begins a downward spiral into extreme depression. Reading this book with other people reminded me of the relevance of mental health: that it is an oftentimes avoided but extremely important topic. Sure, some members were a bit brash and blunt in their handling of the topic at various meetings. But others were vulnerable and shared personal sentiments that I found uplifting as an individual dealing with particular aspects of mental disorder. In reading this supposed autobiography of a book, our group found it nearly impossible to not acknowledge its author and what we know of her life. What we know of her life also encompasses what we know of her death, which cannot be sugarcoated. The concept of "art for art's sake" finds opposition in the case of Esther's similarities to Sylvia, and I believe (to a certain extent) this novel must be read with Plath lingering at the back of one's mind. If not to better understand what she may have been trying to pursue in her writing of a fictional tale, then to remember her and the woman, poet, and artist she was. I won't lie and say I was absolutely blown away by this book; it's not one of my new all time favorites by any stretch. But it allowed me to engage with mature topics I don't always find in the literature I choose to read. It encouraged me to facilitate conversations hinged on subjects that do more harm than good when overlooked. And it made me think about the effects of female social norms in the 50s-60s, electroshock therapy/lobotomies, and the intense pressure many young women feel in terms of being career-successful and wife-material. I reflect on the image of the bell jar Plath waits to introduce until the second half of the book and then repeatedly utilizes until the last few pages, and I raise a glass to the importance of how this literature can speak to anyone who picks it up, no matter what they've gone through or struggled with.


Some of my favorite quotes from The Bell Jar:

"The floor seemed wonderfully solid. It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther."

"I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth."

"There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them."

"I wanted to crawl in between those black lines of print the way you crawl through a fence..."

"Women-haters were like gods: invulnerable and chock-full of power."

"How could I write about life when I'd never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die?"

"I would rather have anything wrong with my body than something wrong with my head..."

A lot -- and I mean a lot -- transpires in this book. We pick up where we left off with Celaena Sardothien, the newly appointed personal assassin to the King of Adarlan. Celaena's already been given targets to "take care of," but *gasp* she's been faking their deaths and helping them flee the capital city! Skating on thin ice under the king's thick gaze as well as walking a thin line between friendship and ~something more~ with Chaol, the king's Captain of the Guard, this book starts off punchy and fast. I especially enjoyed seeing Prince Dorian's character growth. He struck me as a one-dimensional pretty boy who annoyed more than charmed me in the first book, but it's a whole different story in this book! Spoiler alert: Dorian has some sort of primitive magic trying to wake up inside of him that he mustn't let his magic-hating, too powerful father discover! Tasked to keep his dilemma under wraps while also watching Celaena and Chaol step over every line and into each other's arms leaves Dorian in lonely silence. I feel for him and hope he gets the love he deserves in future books. I was kicking my feet when Celaena and Chaol finally addressed the tension between one another and deigned to be together whenever physically possible. But then... oh, Chaol... Poor, tricked Chaol got unwillingly swept up into the secret plans of an underground group planning to overthrow the king -- a group Celaena was tasked with eliminating. The added complication of Eyllwe Princess Nehemia, Celaena's most trusted friend, being not only involved but the leader of this uprising leads to a whole mess of betrayed trust and, another spoiler alert, Nehemia's untimely and brutal death. This death felt like a huge shift in the book to me -- the grief and strange rush of rabid power Celaena experiences leads to the end of her relationship with Chaol and a need for bloody vengeance that catapults the rest of the narrative forward. One of the main targets given to Celaena by the king happens to be an old friend of hers -- Archer Finn. Co-conspirator with Nehemia and responsible, in an indirect way, for the breach of trust between Celaena and Chaol, this too-handsome man bothered me to no end. He eventually releases a monster in the very tunnels beneath Celaena's rooms she had to fight for her life in in Throne of Glass, and it's here that we find out *dun dun dun* Celaena is Fae!!!! The rest of the book sees Chaol trying to process this and gain a shred of Celaena's trust back before influencing the king's decision to send her somewhere where she will be able to escape if she so pleases -- Wendlyn, the land adjacent to the territory of her Fae ancestors. But Chaol doesn't know several key things: if Celaena flees for good, she will be failing Nehemia and essentially sentencing Chaol to death at the king's hand. But most importantly, he doesn't figure out Celaena's true identity until the final pages. Third and final spoiler alert: Celaena Sardothien is actually the lost Queen of Terrasen, Aelin Galathynius. I sort of saw this one coming... thank you Pinterest fan art for basically giving it away. I should have known better. But alas, I'm looking forward to where this series' future books will lead! We've left the king's glass palace for other lands and adventures! I'm still wondering how the unexplainable creature Celaena found in the chambers of the clocktower, Dorian's cousin Roland and Duke Perrington, and all the stuff with the Wyrdmarks will come into play... we shall see.



Some of my favorite quotes from Crown of Midnight:

"But death was her curse and her gift, and death had been her good friend these long, long years."

"Then Celaena and the King of Adarlan smiled at each other, and it was the most terrifying thing Dorian had ever seen."

"To escape death, she'd become death."

"In every way that counted, I failed him."

"But he had no idea what sort of darkness lurked inside her, or what sort of monster she was willing to become in order to make things right."