Title: Belzhar
Author: Meg Wolitzer
Genre: Young Adult, Magical Realism.
Publication Date: October 1st 2014
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Format: Paperback
Pages: 266
Rating: 4/5
She certainly wouldn’t be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English.
But life isn’t fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.
Until a journal-writing assignment leads Jam to Belzhar, where the untainted past is restored, and Jam can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But there are hidden truths on Jam’s path to reclaim her loss.
From New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer comes a breathtaking and surprising story about first love, deep sorrow, and the power of acceptance.
This book was provided to me by the publisher but this in no
way alters my opinions.
Belzhar was different than I was expecting. I knew it was
magical realism and that it was had elements of The Bell Jar/Sylvia Plath, but
that was it. I enjoyed the story – I’ve never read anything like it and I
thought it was very beautiful and unique. It was also just really easy to
plough through – it’s only a short book, but it’s also just one of those books
that you can read in a number of hours. I think the only thing that stopped me
from being a 5 star book was that I didn’t feel there was a lot of Plath in there
– I would have liked to see a bit more, but that’s just because I’ve recently
become a Plath fangirl. I’d definitely suggest Belzhar to anyone who’s looking
for a quick, fun read.
Thank you to Simon and Schuster for providing me with a copy
of this book.
