#February 2023 | The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

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willow carbon
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For the month of February, this forum will be for the discussion of the The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
Please use proper spoiler tags here so that the experience is not ruined for anyone. Have fun everyone!
And feel free to move to #1068267504125878295 to discuss the book freely when you're done!

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February 2023 | The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

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Is this poetry? The goodreads classifies the book under the genre poetry as well?

teal narwhal
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I feel like the writing could pass off as poetry

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In the same way that Homer is poetry

narrow basin
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sylvia plath is also a pretty prolific poet so maybe that's why

charred scarab
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omg the book just came off hold the best timing we love it

agile crane
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I have this ready to go as well pepePoggers

north briar
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All ready peepoPray
TW: || During my mental breakdown at 14, I remember specifically that my mother was asked to keep me from being alone in the kitchen with sharp things and to ensure that I wasn't reading this??? It's very strange in hindsight if maybe well meaning and it's part of the reason I have not read it to date Flooshed ||

sand stag
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Just bought a copy of this about 2 weeks ago - great timing.

willow carbon
shadow wadi
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I already started it before, I will finish it tomorrow probs. thank you guys for selecting my choice ❤️ it means a lot to me, I've been wanting to read this for forever

north briar
hidden flume
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should be able to grab a copy today, library opens in a few hours and I'll be on my way. I actually had this book before, read a little bit and DNF. so I'm looking forward to reading with you all

charred scarab
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will be starting today as well!!

charred scarab
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so far got the foreword and first chapter finished and i am realizing i know absolutely nothing about this book besides the name and its popularity askdjf

sharp jetty
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Going to start with the book today as well. Found a free copy on my kobo reader. Can't wait to read it with you all

teal wing
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chapter 1|| "He kept staring at her the way people stare at the great white macaw in the zoo, waiting for it to say something human."||

||I think she means a Cockatoo i have never heard of a white macaw. And macaws arent really known for speaking thats again cockatoos. Like white macaws do exist because of albinism its extremly rare for them to be completly white but now that i thint about it that might be the hole point of the sentence ||

teal wing
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chapter three|| "With one exception I’ve been the same weight for ten years" My theory is that she is pregnant ||

charred scarab
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chapter 2: i love all the details of everyplace she is. it really feels like we're alone with her and her thoughts even though there are others involved if that makes sense.
||i noted these quotes, "I felt myself shrinking to a small black dot against all those red and white rugs and that pine paneling. I felt like a whole in the ground."

and right after that, "There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room."

and this one not necesarily about loneliness but i really liked it. "I never feel so much myself as when I'm in a hot bath. I lay in that tuub on the seventeenth floor of this hotel for-women-only, high up over the jazz and push of New York, for near onto an hour, and I felt myself growing pure again. I don't believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan or anything like that, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water."||

teal wing
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chapter six|| "But undressing in front of Buddy suddenly appealed to me about as much as having my Posture Picture taken at college, where you have to stand naked in front of a camera, knowing all the time that a picture of you stark naked, both full view and side view, is going into the college gym files to be marked A B C or D depending on how straight you are." did this actually happen||

sharp jetty
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I’m really enjoying the vivid way of describing moments. It really makes me immersed in the story very quickly.

Chapter 3 ||I was really stuck by this sentence and noted it as a quote: “ “I’m very interested in everything.” The words fell with a hollow flatness on to Jay Cee’s desk, like so many wooden nickels.”||

rocky junco
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||chapter 1: okay Idk but I feel that Esther feels something for Doreen, like, she’s always talking about how awesome and beautiful is Doreen, but I think she would be a bad influence to her||

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||chap 2 and 3:okay, I feel suspicious about Lenny, he just appeared and like that Doreen and Esther were with him, and his giving them drinks, I don’t think is a good idea to accept drinks or anything to eat for people you just met, also I never imagine that Esther would leave Doreen like that||

rocky junco
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||chap 4: I wasn’t expecting that Doreen would appear, it’s the first time i see her being a good friend, i like her though, she’s smart and sarcastic, I love people like that||

rocky junco
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||i didn’t imagine Buddy Willar like that, and this chapter leave me with an important question, what baby?||

rocky junco
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||chap 6: I don’t feel like Buddy is a bad person, I mean, he didn’t cheated her, they were nothing when that happened, but I know that Esther may feel disappointed||

teal wing
rotund meteor
charred scarab
thin cradle
rocky junco
thin cradle
rocky junco
hidden flume
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got it! will be starting shortly

charred scarab
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just started chapter 3 and i loved this quote 😂 (not spoilery but i'll still spoiler it) ||"I'm not sure why it is, but I love food more than just about anything else."||

plush hamlet
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I just started reading 'THE BELL JAR'..
just read the first page and what's up with this para! - ||For weeks afterwards, the cadaver's head—or what there was left of it—floated up behind my eggs and bacon at breakfast and behind the face of Buddy Willard, who was responsible for my seeing it in the first place, and pretty soon I felt as though I were carrying that cadaver's head around with me on a string, like some black, noseless balloon stinking of vinegar.|| ||damn! that's some insane imagination.||

north briar
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I have done the classic move of binge reading in such a way that I did not even put my thoughts down heheghost moving to finished YA_Prayge

sharp jetty
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chapter 12 ||this chapter has made me feel a lot of things, but I think what made me hurt the most was what Esther's mom said when she left the doctor's place: 'I knew my baby wasn't like that.' (I looked at her. 'Like what?') 'Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital.' She paused. 'I knew you'd decide to be all right again.' i don't know if it broke me: whether it was because mental health back then was just so misunderstood with the shock therapy and everything, or because sometimes it is still misunderstood in a different way or whether it it just hit too much home for me. Maybe a combination of it all.. But in this moment my heart broke for Esther and I cried a little crai ||

rotund meteor
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Chapter 5 ||we finally meet Buddy! The part about the poetry lasting longer than people made me sad considering the author’s personal history. I like how she keeps teasing out information about Esther’s backstory. I really wanna know about this baby they saw lol||

rotund meteor
rotund meteor
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Chapter 6 ||more backstory- the hospital visit made me think of a field trip we took in advanced biology my senior year of HS. My teacher was friends with the head of pathology at a major hospital in Boston. (I grew up in Connecticut). And all of us were brought in to observe autopsies. It was… an unforgettable experience, and I think Esther handled it better than most of us did.

Also, oof, what a clinical “sex” scene. Esther seems to frequently bring up cleanliness/purity (eating, now sex), and I know that was a big part of growing up at that time, and certainly at that place (because it was still a thing there in the 80s… I mean my mom used to say “you can’t have sex before marriage, what would the neighbors think?”, and I’d be like “O_o”) but I also wonder if it’s a sign of an eating disorder or OCD. Watching to see how that expands||

rotund meteor
rotund meteor
rotund meteor
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Chapter 7&8- ||I feel like there was more intimacy in that one little gesture from Constantin about her hair than in years of interactions with Buddy.

I’m loving the poetic imagery very much, but yet it doesn’t seem overdone to me which is nice. And the metaphor of her skiing independently (successful on her first attempt!) and then being pushed (off-course?) into an accident by a “man in her way” was really powerful to me. (Or am I reading too much into that?)

And then Buddy seems happy and “satisfied” about her broken leg and the cast (that will be both a hinderance and proof of her failure). Seriously. Dump this guy. Meh||

shadow wadi
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Tonight is the night I finally finish!!

rocky junco
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chap 18

hidden flume
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chapter 2
|| she left Doreen out in the hall 😵 I absolutely loved "I made a decision about Doreen that night. I decided I would watch her and listen to what she said, but deep down I would have nothing at all to do with her."
ohh the amount of times I have personally been there. that was close to home ||

rocky junco
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||I’m surprised that even this book (even though it was written in the 60’s) talks a bit about homosexuality and the relationships between women, and how compressive was the doctor Nolan about that||

rocky junco
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chap 19

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||Maybe I’m very innocent, but, what happened to Esther??, the doctor said that it was very uncommon, does anyone knows what happened? I’m still 15 so, it’s a mystery for me faceThunking. Also, poor Joan, I liked her, she was a good person||

hidden flume
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chapter 4
|| I would have done the same with a finger bowl, not knowing what to do with it🤣. a little rude Philomena kept her mouth shut not saying anything. ugh that food poisoning was awful, such a terrible experience. ironic Doreen was taking care of Esther after Esther left Doreen out in the hallway when the tables were turned ||

rocky junco
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||chap 20 “To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead body, the world itself is a bad dream” This book taught me a lot about depression, and I think its metaphor about the bell jar is completely right, when you have mental illness like depression, you feel disconnected from the entire world, only your problems are by your side, like if you were in a bell jar||

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I finally finished the book

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I loved it!!!

thin cradle
rocky junco
hidden flume
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chapter 8
|| "It never occurred to me to say no." all too relatable .. why was buddy satisfied with Esther breaking her leg? because he was sick and now she was out of commission herself? he seems very selfish to me right now and I don't like the vibes from him all too much. ||

rotund meteor
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Chapter 13 (tw: suicide/religion) ||it strikes me that there’s an elemental structure to Esther’s different attempts. She tries to hang herself (air), she tries to drown herself (water) and she’s dug down into the cellar to overdose (earth). It makes me wonder if fire will play a role eventually.

Also, all the talk of religious denominations made me remember from my childhood when that was a bigger part of your public identity than it is now. It was ofc assumed you were Christian in my New England suburban factory town. I knew about Judaism (and the Holocaust thanks to Judy Blume) but didn’t meet anyone Jewish until 6th grade. That was also when the Iranian hostage crisis happened, which is how I learned that Islam was even a thing. I do remember being told by 4th grade classmates that I was going to hell because I didn’t go to catechism at the local Catholic church, because Sunday School at the Baptist church didn’t count.

I wonder if that’s still something that ppl focus on in other regions of the US than where I am now? Or if now that other religions are more apparent and recognized, being “Christian” is enough to someone’s public identity and the denominations don’t matter anymore?

(Fwiw, I’m not a follower of any organized religion, and I have strong feelings about intolerance)||

rotund meteor
sharp jetty
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chapter 20 ||Reading about Buddy coming back and being concerned he "drives women crazy" made me cringe so hard. The relief he felt, that self centeredness of him ugh, i can't. Good writing but this just feels too real, too familiar.||

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Finished it too, moving to finished thread

hidden flume
hidden flume
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finishing shortly- my next post will be in the finished chat🥳

steel wagon
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Just started this in audiobook! I found a version narrated by Maggie Gyllenhal and so far her narration is on point pepeDreamy

charred scarab
charred scarab
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on chapter 14 ||she's in the hospital talking about the mirror and it just reminded me of the poem "mirror" by sylvia plath i recently read for class, it kind of had me combining the two scenarios of her in the hospital but with the mirror talking in first person about what it sees||

steel wagon
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Ch 1-2 ||anyone else feels Esther is pretty… entitled? Also her comments on looking yellow like a chinaman is not sitting with me right WorrySit maybe she gets a pass for writing this in the 1960s but it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth lol||

narrow elk
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starting today

steel wagon
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Ch 7 ||The writing really is exquisite. When Esther describes how confined women in marriages can feel or how things we learn in school don't translate well in the real world, I feel her sentiments keenly. I feel like I've seen the paragraph about the fig tree before (the one about how a woman/girl like Esther can choose only one fig out of many desirable figs).||

snow vessel
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Starting this today AwkwardMonkey

proud slate
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is this book worth it? i want to read it for the points, but at the same time, this book is supposed to be very sad and depressing and i hv a lot of other books i wanna read too

autumn venture
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I've started this last night and I've been really liking the writing and the easy flow of the book... kind of reads like a diary with some random relatable bits

steel wagon
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Ch 8 ||the relentlessness with with Esther decided to ski down the slope was so well captured… set against the indifferent sun. Ok, Sylvia Plath, I’m coming around. ||

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Ch 9 ||the ending scene in which Esther scattered her clothes to the wind was sad and beautiful ||

proud slate
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Chp 1:|| oh i thought the whole thing was a poem or smth. good thing that it isnt. it would take much longer to read then||

proud slate
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Chp 2: ||bruh they just decided to get drinks with this random guy they met on the street? stranger danger anyone?||

proud slate
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Chp 7: ||“It had crossed my mind at the time that Eric might be a good person to go to bed with, since he had already done it and, unlike the usual run of boys, didn’t seem dirty-minded or silly when he talked about it.” but he sounds like a sexist pig. everyone in this book is so sexist. i suppose this was the norm back in the 60s||

proud slate
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Chp 9: ||this books plotline is messing with my head. i cant get a proper timeline. also ‘this is my last day’ of her life (it cant be. we’re not even half way through) or in new york?||

autumn venture
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The writing really is beautiful
I’m almost done, would possibly finish today

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Ch. 2
||>>> I remember the ceilings over every bathtub I’ve stretched out in. I remember the texture of the ceilings and the cracks and the colours and the damp spots and the light fixtures. I remember the tubs, too: the antique griffin-legged tubs, and the modern coffin-shaped tubs, and the fancy pink marble tubs overlooking indoor lily ponds, and I remember the shapes and sizes of the water taps and the different sorts of soap-holders.

I never feel so much myself as when I’m in a hot bath||

autumn venture
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Ch. 3
||> “You ought to read French and German,’ Jay Cee said mercilessly, ‘and probably several other languages as well, Spanish and Italian – better still, Russian. ”

Like howww?? And this is expected of her while she works and studies full-time? omg ||

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Ch. 4
||> “ I stepped on as many feet as I could because it took my mind off this enormous desire to puke that was ballooning up in front of me so fast I couldn’t see round it.”

Idk why I keep getting surprised at the brute honesty kek ||

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Ch. 5
||It’s been awfully long since I’d last used a taxi, but do we really tip taxi drivers? Or like is it a cultural norm sort of thing? I mean, where I come from, a person might give something extra out of the goodness of their heart but it isn’t expected of them ig ||

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||> “If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”

Me with books, and maybe sometimes humans too ||

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Ch.6
||> “was so busy thinking how very fat he was and how unfortunate it must be for a man and especially a young man to be fat, because what woman could stand leaning over that big stomach to kiss him, that I didn’t immediately realize what this student had said to me was an insult”

Seriously Esther

I get that this book being written in the 60s and all that but sometimes it’s hard to remember that and harder still to accept Esther’s thought process

The casual sexism, fat-phobia, racism etc…

Also, how awful and mechanical almost was the birth of a baby omg
And them being like ‘if a woman watches, she wouldn’t want to have a baby’ like ughhhhh ||

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Cen, continue on with whatever you’d like to share, I might take a while kek

autumn venture
snow vessel
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Starting this now forreal.

steel wagon
snow vessel
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Ch 1, 2, & 3: ||I find her mentioning she had a hard time picturing people in bed together interesting tho I’m not sure why. I wonder the reason, why is it mentioned. Also already early on speaking of how she made herself smaller for this man she just met to feel more comfortable even though it made her uncomfortable to do so herself. Already seeing the themes of the individual vs society.||

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||I don’t think I could even find comfort in a bath but being in a shower, having the water run over me gives me much if the same comforts I imagine she gains from her hotbaths.||

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|| I cannot express how much I relate to the “I love food more than anything else” comment. 😆||

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||Learning all these languages seems like a nightmare! I still struggle with French i can imagine trying to learn 4 others on top of it or even any time soon after I’ve managed it omg ||

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||Esther if Mr. Manzi ever asks her about something he taught in class:||

SPOILER_IMG_4849.jpg
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Ch 4: || “She looked terrible, but very wise.” Omg?? omg ||

snow vessel
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Ch 5: ||Building a whole life with some random person that held a door open for you once. I know this feeling well, dear Esther.||

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|| How dare you tease with this awful Buddy character and not tell us what he did. WorryDetective ||

snow vessel
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||also that man yelling at her for not giving him more. oh he would’ve been done for||

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||”I reckon a good poem last longer than a 100 of those people” oof ||

snow vessel
snow vessel
autumn venture
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I finished this last night! Will move threads and share my final thoughts soon-ish 🤞

snow vessel
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Ch 8: Though this doesn’t pertain only to chapter 8 ||Its interesting how Esther calls Buddy a hypocrite yet she is one herself. She’s not attracted to him yet stay with him this long and leads him on||

proud slate
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Chp 13: ||this girl really has the worst luck when it comes to killing herself||

proud slate
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Chp 18: ||whats a fitting? is it like an iud? did they even hv iuds back then?||

snow vessel
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Finished this. ✅

rotund meteor
urban gust
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Joining in very late

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hope I'll be able to finish reading it in time

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Is there a big difference if I read an old edition of a book?

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||The story just started and the narrator is talking about being electrocuted?||

rotund meteor
urban gust
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Chapter 1: ||I still have almost no idea what is going on or what the story is about. I started reading this without any context of it, aside from it's title, I don't even know the genre of this book. But the last thing the girl said, about liking looking on at other people in crucial situations, interests me. I'm also someone who like observing others, especially through odd and abnormal situations.||

urban gust
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Ch. 2 ||Then Lenny gave a terrible roar. I sat up. Doreen was hanging on to Lenny's left earlobe with her teeth.|| that sounds painful.. kinda...

hidden flume
narrow basin
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strating this super duper late fingers crossed i finish it by the end of the month haha

cobalt torrent
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So I completely forgot about this, starting it now!

crimson egret
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Ok I powered through the whole book in two sittings so I'm gonna head straight to finished to give my thoughts

urban gust
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read till chapter 7

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ngl, I'm kinda lost

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I'm really bad with remembering names, and there seems to be a lot of that in this book

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||for now all I know is that this girl wants to sleep with someone to get even with his ex-boyfriend who she hasn't broken up with yet cuz she can't say it to him||

agile crane
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Just started this! Just finished chapter one and it's well written and I like the language used (apart from the offensive bits) but I'm not completely sold on it yet

agile crane
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Read up to chapter 3 - I don't think enough is really happening for me yet and if this is character driven then I probably won't like it that much, but Esther does seem to have a lot on her plate

agile crane
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ch 4 - ||uh, was everyone poisoned on purpose or?|| Seems a bit strange.

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Ch 5 - ||"Of course, our mothers were good friends. They had gone to school together and then both married their professors and settled down in the same town."|| this is gross and sad and is just said in such a matter-of-fact way

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Are any of these characters actually likeable so far? Maybe Doreen but I'm glad I'm not a character in this book

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||I don't care for Esther and Buddy so maybe it's good that he slept with someone else and gave her an excuse for her to mentally break things off with him.|| Esther does have a peculiar (and not very nice) way of thinking about things

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wish we could stop with the racism as well but I'm guessing that was 'normal' language when this book was written

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"The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. " girl, same

agile crane
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the fatphobia

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Ch 9 - ||Was Marco trying to sexually assault her or what? He's a gross dude and attracted to his cousin AND seems like a sexist pig. idk the entire interaction didn't really add anything to the book||

narrow basin
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Yea im tapping out of this one 😞 i got knocked down by a horrible horrible cold and last thing i wanna do is read tbh

urban gust
urban gust
hidden flume
agile crane
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I did the audiobook and read along as well to try and understand it better but I’m not sure it helped

agile crane
urban gust
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ch 13 - ||would she just kill herself already?? like she keeps saying she's gonna do this and do that but just can't manage to actually kill herself every time. I don't care a bit about this character and honestly I would be happy if she just died and this book ended||

thin cradle
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Serious trigger warning for self harm in this comment ^

urban gust
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sorry, didn't know I had to mention that

urban gust
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finished the book

narrow basin
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Maggie gyllenhaal is narrating the audio i have which, i love.

steel wagon
narrow basin
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Everyone seems to not really like this book and here i am freaking out cus it’s a little too relatable to me 😭 😭

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Also it makes me wanna read every poem sylvia plath has ever written

thin cradle
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Oh I liked it, let me see how to put it. I thought it’s a good book (not rereading this month cause I reread recently, just here for the discussion) but the memories of reading it are almost too painful to say I liked it. Does that make sense?

narrow basin
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Yea it totally makes sense.

willow carbon
hidden linden
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It was like reading the diary of a madman, written in the most beautiful poetic prose. It was hauntingly beautiful and heartbreakingly sad. The excerpt that sticks with me the most in the bell jar is || when she describes the figs on the fig tree, each one rotting and falling as she chose another. The indecision of wasted time….lovely. ||

thin cradle
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That’s the image that sticks with a lot of people, and ||I find that interesting, especially given our modern concept of women “having it all”. The fact that this still resonates with a lot of people and not just women makes me think having it all really is a myth and people do feel like they have to choose and in the choosing give up other options||

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Oh also just realized this is technically the in progress reading channel, so be sure to use spoilers

teal narwhal
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It's in the #rules lol

tender surgeBOT
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Here's a link:

Voe

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