Rating: 4.5 Cups of Coffee
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.
From New York Times bestselling
author Meg Wolitzer comes a breathtaking and surprising story about first love,
deep sorrow, and the power of acceptance.
Natasha’s Experience:
“Everyone has something to say. But not everyone can bear to say it.
Your job is to find a way.”
What a story!! BELZHAR was such a fascinating YA read with a
touch of magical realism that I absolutely fell right into and didn’t want to
leave – much like the characters in this book. Meg Wolitzer creates a story
that blends the real, traumatic world of being a teenager and the magic that
can come from writing.
“We’re talking about the novel, right? But maybe we’re not. We’re
talking about ourselves. And I guess that’s what can start to happen when you
talk about a book.”
Jam Gallahue is sent away to a boarding school called The
Wooden Barn to help her get over the death of her boyfriend, Reeve, and
essentially to start living again. But Jam doesn’t want to get better; she wallows
in the darkness that came over when she lost the love of her life. Being a teenager
in love feels like the world should stop when something happens to that love.
Jam is confused and heartbroken and spiraling into a depression that she can’t
seem to find a way out of. Her parents and friends want her to just “snap out
of it” as if that’s all it takes to suddenly see the light again. Jam needs to
learn how to let the light back in on her own.
“We can’t be afraid of change. Or else we’ll miss out on everything.”
Jam is enrolled in an English class that really opens her
eyes to the power of writing and just how incredibly healing words can be.
During her semester, she spends time reading up on Sylvia Plath and falls in
love with her writing style. I loved learning about THE BELL JAR through Jam’s
eyes, seeing as I haven’t read it myself, because it made me want to
immediately run out and pick that story up to see for myself what I was missing
out on.
“Even when I can’t relate on a personal level, she makes me know what
she feels, and that’s really something. To find out what another human being
feels, a person who isn’t you; to get a look under the hood, so to speak. A
deep look inside. That’s what writing is supposed to do.”
Being in this English class means completing a writing
assignment in a journal that Jam has no interest in writing in. But after
putting her pen to the paper for the first time, she realizes just how intense
writing can feel.
“We each have only one voice. And the world is so loud. Sometimes I
think that the quiet ones have figured out that the best way to get other
people’s attention is not to shout, but to whisper. Which makes everyone listen
a little harder.”
BELZHAR is a stunning story about a teenager who loses love
after only getting a taste of it and succumbs to the sadness that ensues when
love is lost. It’s about finding your way back to the person you used to be
before the tragedy and dealing with life after loss. Meg Wolitzer weaves a tale
of sorrow and beauty and how writing can be the most cathartic experience a
person can have.
“Books light the fight – whether
it’s a book that’s already written, or an empty journal that needs to be filled
in.”
Links
About the Author
Meg Wolitzer’s novels include The Interestings; The
Uncoupling; The Ten-Year Nap; The Position; and The Wife. She is also the
author of a novel for middle-grade readers, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman,
and a novel for young adults, Belzhar.
Wolitzer’s short fiction has appeared in The Best American
Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize. A faculty member of the MFA program at
Stony Brook Southampton, in September 2013 along with singer-songwriter Suzzy
Roche she was a guest artist in the Princeton Atelier program at Princeton
University.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads Author Page
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads Author Page
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