2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

Pages: 288 pages

Length: 1 month (June)

Participants: Susan, Emily

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

Here are some questions to help get the conversation started! Feel free to look up discussion questions specific to this book or come up with your own. Just make sure any questions that contain spoilers are under spoiler tags.
Discussion questions are not required but may be a fun way to talk about the book and get to know each other!

Prior to starting:
What prompted you to join this buddy read?
Have you read this author before? What do you think of their other books?

Mid-read:
What character or ideas do you relate to the most and why?
Do you have any favorite quotes or scenes?

After reading:
What was enjoyable or not-so-enjoyable about this book?
Did this book change your perception about anything, either within the book (character development) or in real life?

Thank you Emily for wanting to read The Bell Jar with me! I’m really looking forward to reading it!

This one is on my list to read in 2025, and I'd love to join the two of you reading it in June. I'm new here, so if I'm doing this wrong let me know. :)

Dolores wrote: "This one is on my list to read in 2025, and I'd love to join the two of you reading it in June. I'm new here, so if I'm doing this wrong let me know. :)"

Sounds good! The more the merrier!

Thanks so much. I'm joining this one because one of my Facebook friends challenged me to read The Bell Jar in 2025. It's been sitting on my shelf waiting for the right moment. And this buddy challenge has prompted me to pick it up.

i wish to join

I'm starting this one tonight. It's been on my "I want to read that" list for years. I'm looking forward to reading it. Mental illness is only recently beginning to be taken seriously, so I'm curious how Plath will explore it in a novel written before I was born.

I'm going to be starting this tomorrow! I've had it on my shelf for a while so I'm excited to finally read it.

Finished this today and I absolutely loved it! I thought it was a really good depiction of mental health and mental illness. I'm excited to hear other people's thoughts as well.

Wow Emily, that was quick! Last week was crazy and I didn't get a lot of reading time in, but I'm about a third of the way in and so far I'm enjoying it.

I'm finally getting around to starting The Bell Jar today! I've had a busy month of traveling and reading. This is a book that's been on my TBR shelf for ages! Can't wait to read it!

Very quick read! Finished it this afternoon. My husband had asked what it was about and I had a hard time explaining it. Lots of mental health issues wrapped up in a beautifully written book. I've put off reading this book for years now, but glad I finally did. Also it was book #100 for me to read in 2025! Seems fitting considering my family thinks I've gone crazy with my reading so far this year! LOL.

I'm a little over halfway through and enjoying the inside of Esther's head more than I expected to. I agree with all of you that it's quite well written.

I finished this about ten minutes ago, and it's going to take me a bit to process it all. I don't know whether to be surprised, concerned or amused that for the most part the inside of Esther's head isn't materially different from my own, though she's clearly far better at expressing herself in words. Like Susan, this has been at the "back of my shelf" for decades, and I'm glad I chose to read it with all of you.