Rating: 
Summary: Great Reading
Review: Plath followed the great tradition of J.D Salinger when she wrote this book. The book almost tells of Plath's own insanity. In this book you hear her characters veiws on life/love/sex/and the world. It also gives an intreasting look at people with mental illness. I had an easy time relating to the main character and the way she feels towrads the world. I think this book is especialy great for teens but you cannot exclude adults,this book will touch anyone of any age in some way.It's just sad Plath never wrote any other novels.
Rating:
Summary: A Sad but Wonderful Book
Review: This book is a wonderful book about understanding the way people really feel. It is very realistic and makes you open your eyes to the idea that in the past, people were mistreated in the psychological institutions and were thought of as being insane, instead of people who could be helped with proper treatment. It is very sad, but worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Stolen
Review: It is a tragedy that a writer with this brilliant of a voice died by the very hands that transferred her story to paper. The Bell Jar is a haunting novel of a girl in her prime trapped in her downward spiral. Plath writes eloquently, so that what Esther feels, the reader feels. No stone is left unturned in the insanity that follows. I don't know a woman personally, who has not weeped somewhere throughtout this book. A must read for any Plath lover.
Rating: 
Summary: Reads Like The Haunting Toll of a Bell
Review: I thought this book was pretty good. Although parts of the plot I found boring. I felt that the writing lacked the humor and zest of Elizabeth Wurtzel or Susanna Kaysen. However, there was something about the style with which the author writes which could only be described as hollow, a feeling truly endemic of depression. The story of Esther going through college, bright, attractive, inundated with praise and opportunity scarce for a woman at her time yet feeling empty and unsure of herself, is like the adolescence which all young people find themselves going through. The struggles with friendships, money, power, feminism, and intimacy all lead to Esther's gradual reduction within herself until there is nothing left to do but submit to complete annihilation of one's self. Sylvia Plath is a wonderful writer whose prose is its own genre of illustrious poetry (something she also devoted a great deal of energy to). The idea of her life ending so tragically early is a painful one to behold. There is undoubtedly a lesson to be learned from this book.
Rating:
Summary: Nevermind the label, the Bell Jar is a just a good book
Review: Many times I have noticed Sylvia Plath's intimate autobiographical novel labeled as a "feminist novel" or placed in Listmania lists of feminist books. Although, "feminism" is a term that has been loosely defined, I want to say, "Uh-uh." Do a few encounters with jerky men constitute a feminist label? I doubt it. Does its portrayal of a woman being labeled mentally ill and sent to an asylum make it a feminist book? Not if she is. Does a gifted woman writing a harrowing, interesting, well-written novel some kind of achievement for all women? No, although it many be a big step for how literary society views female writers. But that's beside the point, which is the central themes of the book. To me, a feminist book or a feminist anything is something with an agenda, a central theme, calling people to stand up or portraying something preeminent as just or unjust. None of that appears in the Bell Jar's central themes: desperation, depression, pressure. You could overanalyze the book and say the themes stemmed from a male dominated society, but I truly doubt that society or the women it suppresses were a big enough part of the book to say so. The Bell Jar is, if anything, about an inward struggle to come to grips with depression and regaining an interest in life. I think feminists see the beauty of this book and want to assimilate into their agenda. Sorry, no strings attached here. Just a good, thought-provoking and, most of all, moving book.
Rating:
Summary: Gifted Writer
Review: From the moment I picked up this book and started to read it I could not put it down. I was not very well informed about Sylvia Plath, the poet, when I began reading this autobiographical, but as I dove deeper into her world of reoccuring madness I could understand what she was going through as a gifted young writer. Even if you are not a lover of poetry you will still enjoy this well written piece of literature.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't read it if you're a man
Review: Even though this book is required reading for every independent women out there, doesn't mean you have to read it (if you're a man). Unlike Neruda and cummings, this book will not get you laid if a woman sees you reading it. I read this book so take my warning. Actually just buy this book and put it in your bookshelf when a girl comes, then give her some vapid comment, like "this book gave me a better perspective on the soul of every woman struggling in a chauvinistic society." And then read her some Neruda, for godsakes.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I love The Bell Jar..I thought it was such a good book. Some of it got pretty weird but when I was done reading it I thought it was one of those books that I would remember.
Rating: 
Summary: Read it even if you know you'll hate it.
Review: This seems to me to be one of those books that you absolutely have to read even if you know you'll hate it - just because it's so important, so touted and so, well, very well-written. Like the summaries say, it "chronicles a gifted young woman's descent into insanity." It's very realistic because it was drawn directly from real life - the protagonist (one Esther Greenwood) _is_ Sylvia Plath, more or less. Plath very vividly describes every detail of every day, and fleshes out her character completely. My one impression was bewilderment at the emptiness, soullessness and lack of purpose of most of the characters in the book, Esther included. However, this was not due to the author but due to the author's subjects - people _are_ really like that, and you'll realize that at some point in the book and you'll hope to hell that you're different. (So just for that little revelation, I recommend it.) Every one of the characters is so real that you probably know someone exactly like them - the crusty Jay Cee, the means-well-but-is-a-complete-jerk Buddy Willard, all the various young women who think nothing of giving away their bodies to a fleeting acquaintance, Esther, who is incapable of achieving anything despite her obvious talent and so plans to affirm her identity through sleeping with someone she just met, etc. None of them are exaggerated in the least. At the end, the story will leave the readers asking why all this happened, why Esther went crazy, why she couldn't do something with her talents, why no one seems to have any reason to take up space on the earth, whose fault is it, what do we do about it, why it has to be like this, and so on. The book provides no answers to any of that, and unfortunately, it's too late to ask Sylvia Plath to answer.
Rating:
Summary: Are you living in a bell jar?
Review: This is an easy book to read, however, it can be very confusing when Esther becomes completely insane. This is the reason I give The Bell Jar only a 4 star rating. While reading this book, one questions whether or not Esther is truly insane. I began to rationalize her thoughts and was pulled into her world. Are you living in a bell jar?
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