The Bell Jar
Cut along the dashed lines and pass the cards around the table.
Where did you do most of your reading of this one, and did you find yourself needing a blanket, a snack, or a break between chapters?
The opening pages drop you into a hot, glittering New York summer. What did that heat and shine feel like to read, and did any small detail (a dress, a meal, a hotel room) stick to you?
So much of this book is about being told you are lucky while feeling anything but. Was there a moment where that landed close to home for you?
The narrator keeps imagining all the lives she could choose and feeling paralyzed by the choosing. When in your own life have you felt that particular ache, and what helped loosen it?
This book is often described as bleak, yet the narrator is genuinely funny. Which of her observations made you laugh out loud, and did that humor comfort you or unsettle you?
The novel is full of expectations about what a young woman should want: the job, the ring, the right kind of future. Which of those pressures felt oldest to you, and which felt like it could have been written this year?
The book describes the slow narrowing of a mind with unusual care and precision. How did it feel to be kept that close to her, and was there a page where you wanted to reach into the story and sit beside her?
Without giving anything away about where she ends up, what did this novel leave you holding (hope, grief, recognition, gratitude), and who in your life would you want to hand it to next?