Belzhar | Meg Wolitzer

Review:

Title: Belzhar

Author: Meg Wolitzer

Publication: September 30th, 2014 by Dutton Books for Young Readers

Format: Hardcover

Source: Library

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Magical Realism, Romance (Subplot)

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.

My Thoughts:

When Belzhar came out last fall I tried really hard to ignore all of the hype, because, I HATE HYPE.  Hype stresses me out and gives me pre conceptions of the book that are often unfounded and unrealistic (at least for me).

Luckily for Belzhar, it sort of fell off my radar until I was the library and I saw it.  I was like, ‘hey, I remember you, I should see what you’re all about’ so I picked it up and read it over Spring Break.

The premise of Belzhar really intrigued me.  Imagining a group of emotionally fragile teens all put together in one place just screamed trouble, in a good way.  I loved the feel of the Special Topics English class.  The had an intimate vibe that reminded me of an english class I had in school once.  Intimacy in a classroom setting yields an entirely different type of education, and I think that Belzhar works hard to artfully show that.

Although it might not seem like it,  our protagonist Jam is an unreliable narrator.  From the beginning we know that something terrible has happened to her, as with the other students in the Special Topics English class (and the entire school, really).  But what that event was remains uncertain to the reader, and to the other characters for the majority of the story.  I liked Jam as a protagonist because I think she wasn’t the type of person that people would expect to have emotional troubles, and yet she was.  Jam really was sick, and it wasn’t romanticized, it was gentle, it was horrifyingly and upsettingly real.  And even if you don’t realize it until the end, which you probably won’t, it’s even more woefully sad.  But Jam was great as protagonist in other ways too.  She was painfully naive, but she had a sweet relationship with her younger brother.  She was student but she also sometimes was stupid and made mistakes.  Her (romantic) relationships were not exactly at the forefront of the overall plot (other times they were the entire plot), and some people may view them as unnecessary.  I however, understand that sometimes romance in a time of grief actually happens, it’s happened to me.  It might not always be the best of choices, but it is a coping mechanism, and its wonderful to feel something real, something that doesn’t hurt, in times of grief.

The other characters in Belzhar were lovely in their own special ways.  Each student had the ability to be uniquely damaged but at the same time not ‘outshining’ the others in their distress.  The class dynamic and their ability to become close as a group is something to be admired, and I liked how Wolitzer used that in the story.

As for Belzhar, the place.  Yes, I am a huge  fan of magical realism (just read my ravings about The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender) but I am particularly a fan of how it was used in Belzhar.  I won’t go into too much detail, because I think that the magic of reading it blank minded is fantastic, but I will say that Wolitzer tastefully manipulates the characters in exciting ways.  Belzhar becomes more of an escape, it becomes a healing process.

Although I have never read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, or any of her poems, I think that it something that I will certainly do in the future.  Less because of how The Bell Jar was used in Belzhar, but more because I do believe that reading can affect who you are as a person.  And The Bell Jar was at the very root of the messages in the book.

Thoughts Concluded:

Belzhar is not a perfect book, and it’s not a book for everyone.  But it is beautifully written, painfully true, heartbreakingly emotional.  Distortion mixes with emotion and reality, creating an accessible dream world for both the characters, and the reader.  This is a book for readers who have never dealt with magical realism before, but enjoy serious, emotional stories.  This is a book for readers who are a fan of magical realism but want something little darker.  Fans of Gayle Forman’s I Was Here, Lesyle Walton’s The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, and Jay Asher’s 13 Reasons Why will enjoy Belzhar immensely.

Prose from Belzhar:

“He was like a long beaker in chemistry class, and the top was always bubbling over because some interesting process was taking place inside” (3).

“And then, like two people jumping off a rock into water, I guess we both fall helplessly into sleep.  I’m not sure which of us gets there first” (92).

My Freaking Out Over Twitter with Meg Wolitzer: