The Bell Jar by Victoria Lucas

No wonder Sylvia Plath published it under a pseudonym. Man, she lays herself bare, describing her downward spiral during her internship with Mademoiselle magazine in New York City and her difficult days at home afterward when she obsessed about suicide until she finally attempted it but did not die. She details her character's experience of being in a mental hospital and receiving electric shock treatments, things that Plath knew firsthand herself. She does a fine job of making the line between mental health and mental illness blurry for the reader as I think it must be for the person living through the changes. I asked myself while reading, 'Wait a minute, when did she take a turn for the worse? Is she not well now?" It happens as easily as slipping into a warm bath. Her return to health is gradual, but this story makes the mental illness seem more like an episode than a life-long illness. Esther Greenwood is going to be okay. I only wish that had been the true story for the author, too.