Title: Belzhar Author: Meg Wolitzer
Published: September 30, 2014
Genre(s): Realistic/Contemporary
Page Count: 264
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:If life were fair, Jam Gallahue would still be at home in New Jersey with her sweet British boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She’d be watching old comedy sketches with him. She’d be kissing him in the library stacks.
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.
In a strange ode to Sylvia Plath, Meg Wolitzer’s Belzhar documents one fall semester for Jam Gallahue, who is dealing with grief and isolation in the wake of her boyfriend’s death. A special class at a special school introduces Jam and four other students to Plath’s writing, and then weird magic happens that somehow initiates a rather cheesy happy conclusion. This book is just so strange, honestly. I don’t know what to make of it.
Not gonna lie, I didn’t really like this book. I think Wolitzer is a strong, experienced author who knows how to tell a story, but I don’t think the story she told here was necessarily good. It’s different, sure, but that doesn’t necessarily equate with quality fiction.
See, this book was just too easy. Writing in this magical journal that induces an out-of-body hallucination experience solves these kids’ problems. They then have sappy conversations about how “changed” they are, and everyone waltzes off for their happy ending. Belzhar is just too simple. I’d like to believe in the power of this magical journal, but I can’t. It was too strange, too out-there, in comparison with the rest of the book which is very grounded in the traditions of YA realistic fiction.
I’m also not a huge fan of Sylvia Plath in the first place, and Belzhar is certainly a love letter of sorts to Plath and her ideas and her legacy. Which is fine, of course. It’s just that that sort of metafictional aspect never thrills me, and it’s probably especially hard to enjoy when the object of everyone’s adulation is an author I’m not particularly fond of on her own terms.
Also, I don’t like Jam at all. I found her to be overdramatic and annoying, and I did not at all buy the author’s portrayal of her mental condition. Spoiler spoiler spoiler, blah blah blah, but at the end of the book I was basically like…really? REALLY?
On the other hand, Wolitzer has great, unique ideas. I’ve been reading YA realistic fiction for years now, and with literally hundreds of titles on my belt, I often feel like I’ve seen it all. Jam’s “adventures” in Belzhar where something I had not seen before. Though if you get the journals out of the picture, this book does feel very tired and familiar in many ways.
So, yeah. I feel like I wasted my money in purchasing Belzhar. A good idea does not mean a book is good quality. I found Meg Wolitzer’s Belzhar to be surprisingly trite and juvenile, in spite of the promise for something profound. Constant discussions of Sylvia Plath’s “genius” did nothing to further endear me to this book, and I walk away quite dissatisfied with everything.
