I studied a lot of Sylvia’s poems last year for my final year of high school. I found them hauntingly beautiful but at such a fragile time personally, I couldn’t bring myself to read anything that I deemed ‘depressing’ so I stayed far away from the Bell Jar. A lot of my classmates read it to help them with their exams and all thoroughly enjoyed it. But even now, the idea of reading about her receiving electric shock therapy is really quite confronting. I do think people mischaracterise Plath as someone who only writes depressing material. I think inherently it is depressing — to think that someone is experiencing such deep sadness and darkness but the way she writes pushes far beyond ‘emo girl’ material. I’d love to read the Bell Jar some day — but I might need a little while before I can come back to Sylvia’s material.