Meg Wolitzer's Belzhar
Sooooo, it's the Meg Wolitzer Sylvia Plath YA novel. Actually, it's a novel about a girl who's sent to a school for "gifted but emotionally fragile" teens after a personal tragedy, where she and four other students are enrolled in a special English class to study the works of Plath--and write in magical journals allowing them to relieve their pasts. OK, sure. I will say, I was totally engrossed in this book for the first half, and then things fell apart a little for me, probably because I wasn't sure about all the teen romance going on, some things/feelings are stated way too blatantly/awkwardly, and also b/c the other four characters are never that well-defined. I guessed most of the ending (though Wolitzer really went much farther than I had anticipated with her reveals, which was cool) but wish it had been a little less neat. I feel like sometimes authors writing YA who normally write for adults kind of dumb things down a little, and that's kind of the case here. I mean, this is a nice book and I think bookish teenage girls will be WAY into it, I just wished for a little more. B/B+.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in October.
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