The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath, 1963
244 pages
Read in 2026.03
Check the synopsis and details on amazon.com
✔ A modern classic about a young woman and her uncertainty ✔ She seems to be successful, yet her mental health falls apart ✔ Though it's more than 60 years old still relevant
★★★★★ A summer job at a magazine in New York, all looks well yet nothing is going well. Modern classic coming of age novel about young women's fear and anger, still very relevant today.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The famous, the classic.
A young woman from a poor family studies hard and wins all prizes including a summer job at a magazine in New York.
All looks well, except nothing was actually going well and she ends up in an institution.
I am glad I didn't read this in my 20s because I'm not sure if I could take it.
Esther's fears are what any young women fear, and her anger, hopelessness, hatred, they are all familiar.
She's determined but if you let go one small rope, you lose yourself in the ocean.
Seemingly successful doesn't always mean happiness.
The author herself took her own life a few weeks after the publication.
It was written in the 60s so the world around these issues has changed, a bit, it's kinder now.
But 60 years on, it's still not that crazy to feel how she felt.
As long as there are girls in this world, this book will be read.
🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽
●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●● The Bell Jar: A Timeless Coming-of-Age Classic (Perennial Classics)
★★★★☆ A collection of short stories that makes you simply sad. It gets you excited a bit, then in the end you face the cold reality, that you are merely insignificant being.
🔽 log 🔽 Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri, 1999 Read in 2018 check on amazon.com
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A collection of short stories that makes you simply sad.
The author herself is of Indian origin so protagonists are Indian or Indian origin, if not someone looking at Indian.
She depicts these Indian characters as some kind of aliens, someone we cannot understand.
The stories get you excited a bit, then in the end you face the cold reality, that you are merely insignificant being.
It won Pulitzer and other awards so I'd love to read this in English.
★★★★★ The dynamics of the 3 generations of these women, these proud, bold, beautiful, lovable women. They all want to live their lives fully.
🔽 log 🔽 The Persians Sanam Mahloudji, 2025 384 pages Read in 2016.02 check on amazon.com
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I've set a theme for this month which is women, and what a perfect start.
A noble, or ex-noble Valiat family, a family that produced a national hero,. The story is about their women who left for America, and those who stayed in Iran after the revolution. It definitely reminds you of Persepolis, but this one has even more incendiaries. The dynamics of the 3 generations of these women, these proud, bold, beautiful, lovable women.
By following the perspectives different women, it shows you the very different lives they've led, how the women in Iran really lived behind the veils, against the money-making shallow lives in America. But it's not only the countries that determine their lives, like Elizabeth being a woman in Iran in the 1940s is different from being one during the 80s, like Niaz.
But one thing is common between these women across 3 generations, they all want to live their lives fully. They want to love freely, they want to discard freely, and they want to embrace each other despite their regrets, grudges, and lies.
Afterall, as Shirin the entrepreneur says, America is younger than their favourite jewellery, so of course their lives are extravagant. Just that their extravagance is not shallow.
★★★★★ Dystopia that could happen in near future. This is the terminal point of misogyny. Women are no longer human but tools to perform some roles. Interesting yes, very much, but above all scary.
🔽 log 🔽 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood, 1985 337 pages Read in 2018
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I borrowed it from a Canadian friend of mine who is a big fan of Atwood, I must say, I was actually staying in a hospital for weeks that time so it was pretty heavy!
Offred is one of very few fertile women left so she has been enslaved to reproduce a child for a commander and his wife.
Not so long ago she had her own life with a husband and a child and she cannot easily let it go.
This is the terminal point of misogyny.
Women are no longer human but tools to perform some roles.
Even wives are just a role, there is no affection between married couples.
You could write a few books dissecting the theme, but let's pause and ponder that Atwood wrote this story in the 80s.
The story is obviously awfully interesting but it's at the same time scary that maybe in 20 years or so, this could be reality somewhere in the world.
✔ A satire and critique of media and publishing industry
✔ Asian American women
✔ Thrilling and grippin
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ I knew it was super popular, and I agree, it's an absolute gem. Facts are not important here, just like over here in the society we live in. It's like I'm watching (peeking) something I shouldn't, and addictive, can't stop it.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I knew it was very popular but I didn't know anything about the story, and it was not what I expected from the title (not that revealing except it's to do with Asian) and definitely better than what I expected.
I thought it'd be more simple, more like a story from Athena's point of view, but no, it's June's story, how the white average girl envied the beautiful and talented Asian girl, and went too far and caused such a mess.
It's exciting, it's difficult to pigeon hole, and it's so now, so true and so entertaining.
It's a story of a bunch of narcissists bitching about everyone else, the facts are no longer important but that's life and life moves on.
And I know Kuang's new book, Katabasis, is out, and I have to reduce my tsundoku (tbr) to at least 100 to get even more books... if I can resist.
✔ Modern classic psychological thriller
✔ Tension between 2 men and a girlfriend
✔ Gripping series
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ We've all watched or heard of the movie. I watched it, but it still got me. He's cold and nervous, and on the contrary the Italian sky is so blue and open.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The famous Mr. Ripley.
As expected it's a great story, which of course I already knew, but I didn't know it was written by a woman, the same writer as Carol, and it was a series.
It focuses a lot on what's on his mind, how he's cold and nervous, contrary to the blue sky of Italy.
Japanese title is "Full of the sun", this alone doesn't make sense, but you get the idea behind it once you finish reading the book.
The sun was so bright, too bright.
There is a remake on Netflix (yet again!) that I should watch too, it's a story that can be told again and again.
🔽 log 🔽 Carol Patricia Highsmith, 1952 The Price of Salt 307 pages Read in 2024.4 check price on amazon.com
✔ Written originally under pseudonym ✔ Lesbian love story and coming of age ✔ Bittersweet
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ An unusual love story; a girl and a woman fall in love, they run away, but there's the tension you wouldn't expect from people in love. And it's bittersweet, as ever.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The movie was with Cate Blanchette, I haven't watched it yet so didn't know the story much but i can see it's a perfect casting.
It must have been a shock when it came out but not as much as it would have been if people knew it was written by her and not was pseudonymous.
I only recently read The Paying Guest by Sarah Waters so I cannot help myself comparing them but it's not so obviously a suspense or mystery. An unusual love story; they fall in love, they run away, but there's the tension you wouldn't expect from people in love. Is it a dare? Is it more about a girl growing up to become a woman. Like there are many stories for boy becoming a man, this is one of those. And it's bittersweet, as ever.
✔ A "remake" of Mrs. Dalloway
✔ Unchanging female struggles
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ It's about 3 women, who want something else than what they have. Don't we all. I really should have read Mrs. Dalloway first.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I knew I had to read "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf first, but went ahead, which is my fault, I'm sure it'd have been much better if I knew the story first.
It's about 3 women, who want something else than what they have.
It is normal to be not normal, to want to run away, turn away.
But as it shows in the case of Mrs Brown, it affects others, and the stories get tangled up.
Some hours are so significant in life. Small actions made in these hours will haunt you.
✔ Modern classic about happiness ✔ Environment and sentiments around mental handicap ✔ Heart breaking
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ What is happiness? I am certain he was happy when surrounded by all the wonders of the world and knowledge, but if life is a cycle, nothing is permanent. Forgiveness and salvations.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
This book is too personal and can't help to think in my surrounding situation, but let's try not to be objective.
This book asks the big question, what is happiness? As Charlie gets smarter, a girl at the bakery mentions the garden of Eden, that God doesn't want us to go beyond what's given to us, quite frankly, she's saying it's wrong to be smart.
Was he happy that he got a lot smarter than everyone around him, was it a good thing? I think he was happy, to be surrounded by the wonders of the world, he absorbed all the knowledge that almost all of us cannot reach. Then he struggles as he lose the super power, but like any of us who get old and old enough to go sinile, I don't think it's a bad thing to return to our simple selves, it's a cycle. You gain something, you also eventually lose that something.
Knowledge is power, sometime too powerful and harmful if we only focus on the power, but like the cycle of life, knowledge in a person is temporary, and he understood it, he decided to live every stage fully.
It also made me thing of one's role in a community, and coming from the US where they focus on the individualism, it's even more interesting that he finds peach in the given role.
Then, at the end, was the mother a bad person? Was she bad to wish he was "normal"? It's easy to say she was evil if you have been taught correctly at school, but if you have never experienced the desperation to realise that your child would never have "normal" conversations and "normal" work like other kids, you cannot dismiss her as bad. She forgot to love her son, she was too focused on her unhappy self, the despair made her blind.
In the end, we are all selfish, but this book is a reminder that we always mean well and we don't want to hurt people around us, it's just it's difficult to juggle it all. Glad that this book is full of salvations and forgiveness.
✔ Poetic writing
✔ Novel about friendship and family complexity
✔ Cult worship
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★☆☆ He follows the mysterious beautiful Korean girl. The dark and raw story about youth and there's a bit of punk a bit of cult. The writing style is refreshing.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The dark and raw story about youth and there's a bit of punk that leads to cult and terrorism, but everything seems to light and superficial, thus, contemporary.
It's new in style, a bit like reading a poem and it's refreshing.
But it lacked depth, you can't go deep into the characters, neither the girl or the boy, so it doesn't make you feel lost in the story.
But maybe that's the point, and I didn't get it.
✔ American classic ✔ Various points of view of the same incidents ✔ Life of Southern US at the turn of the century
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ A difficult read, difficult to understand what's actually happening, but once you get a hang of it, and with a bit of research it's gripping. Must read this again, now that I know the plot.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A difficult read. The first chapter is written from the perspective of a disabled man, who is the fourth child of the family and it's not chronological, things come up as they come up in his mind, jumping around the time and repeating the same things, repeating his love for his sister. Then it goes to the first son's perspective, then the second son's, then ends with no first-person narrator and concludes how the family has collapses.
Throughout the book things go back and forth and there is little explanation of what's actually happening or who's speaking, as if you are reading from the character's mind so you're supposed to follow with no description of events.
Though it's difficult, and I needed a synopsis from Wikipedia, it is gripping once you get a hang of it. Unique, for sure, and it's a sad story of a proud but dysfunctional family. Must read this again, now that I know the plot.
✔ Popular film with Audrey Hepburn ✔ Capote's masterpiece ✔ A young woman in New York
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ Everyone has seen the film, or at least recognise when they see a picture or scene. The free spirited Holly is fragile, she's only 20. Everyone loves her but does anyone care about her?
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Everyone has seen the film, or at least recognise when they see a picture or scene.
But I didn't remember it being so dark towards the end? Probably it isn't in the film. As many reviews say "you will fall in love with the book", and yes you do. The free spirited Holly is actually fragile, especially in the book, she's 20. She makes mistakes, yes, but she moves on, quickly.
Everyone loves her but nobody really cares about her. The iconic romantic story.
There are 3 more short stories and they kind of share the same feeling of bitter romance.
✔ American modern classis ✔ Hippies, saving environment ✔ Weird comedy
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★☆☆ American modern classic. In the wild wild west, hippies roam around to bomb bridges and dams, to save the environment. It’s comical and awkward. I knew it was not my cup of tea but marched on.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 It’s the 70s American wild wild west hippy “comic” – not my cup of tea. I did expect it to be like this, and it did turn out to be like this. And I knew I would march on to finish anyway.
3 men and 1 woman, strangers, meet and form a gang to go against the system, aiming to blow up bridges and dams to save the environment. Maybe it’s a like those gen z warriors who vandalise the art in museums, but they are the weaker copycats, these teenagers don’t risk their lives, but here the Gang do have a rich man but are really sweating and risking.
Anyways this book, it’s more for those macho men, a lot of details of trucks and arms, and it’s that generation who just came back from Vietnam. Very very far from myself.
The monk who sold his Ferrari Robin Sharma, 1996 Canada 198 pages Read 2023.03 check price on amazon.com
✔ Self help book but like a fable ✔ Gives quick advices on how to be spiritual
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★☆☆ It is inspiring, it has all the tips clearly listed to fulfil your dreams, very easy to understand and after reading it anyone would be instantly inspired. It’s a self-help book, and I’m not the target.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 It is inspiring, it has all the tips clearly listed to fulfil your dreams, very easy to understand and after reading this book anyone would be instantly inspired. It has practical advices like if you don’t really get what meditation is, just focus on one point of any object in your room and look at it for a while, without seeking meanings.
But it is very casual and not great as a story, which is probably not the point anyway. “A fable about fulfilling your dreams and reaching your destiny ” is probably a disclaimer so people won’t expect it to be interesting as a story, it’s a self-help book after all.
It drops terms like “ancient India” “mystical community” or “legend in Asia”, which attracts the West – but it did its job. So it IS inspiring, it does move you to change a small thing in your life straight away. Just wish it was more interesting but I am also very aware that I’m not the target of this book.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Raymond Carver, 1981
US
176 pages
Read in 2023.06
check price on amazon.com
✔ Short stories of American suburbs
✔ Japanese translation by Haruki Murakami
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★☆☆ A bit like Haruki Murakami, of American suburbs, nothing really happens, it's subtle and modern - and who knew, Murakami actually translated this book into Japanese. A nice little read.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Short stories from 80s.
A bit like Haruki Murakami, of American suburbs, nothing really happens, it's subtle and modern - and who knew! Murakami actually translated this book into Japanese.
So you might enjoy twice if you are a Japanese Murakami fan.
I didn't know what to expect I just picked it up randomly from a book shop, though not my type, it was a nice little read.
★★★☆☆ It's Margaret Atwood so the writing is intriguing, imaginative and gripping. But, but but, story-wise I just couldn't get myself to be gripped.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
It's a difficult one to judge. First of all It's a Science Fiction, and I'm no expert nor fan of SF so I can't be fair.
It's about a world after some kind of catastrophe where there are no other human than the protagonist and the science has screwed up with species, and so it's a perfect dystopia. It's Margaret Atwood so the writing is intriguing, imaginative and gripping.
But, but but, story-wise I just couldn't get myself to be gripped. The fact that you can't know what's going on for nearly 2/3 of the book is a problem for me (most probably not for SF fans!) Another thing is that you can't be attached to any characters because the author is not building up characters, she's just building up the background and the scenes (for a long time)
Maybe it was supposed to be read when it came out over 20 years ago. Today, with the technology in the post covid society, we feel like we know it's not a mere SF.
✔ Korean zainichi in Japan ✔ Historical fiction World War Two ✔ Mother and daughter relationship
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ Life of a Korean woman who survived all the difficulties the life threw at her. And about her beloved ones, Korean or Japanese. Life is a Pachinko. It’s not fair. You’re bound to lose. But you keep playing. An epic.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Life of a Korean woman who survived all the difficulties the life threw at her. And about her beloved ones, Korean or Japanese.
By narrowing down the novel to one woman’s life, it tells about real struggles, somehow making it universal. The history of Japan and Korea, or Japanese and Koreans, is not an easy one to fully grasp – because it’s still alive. The war is partly to be blamed but it’s not that simple. The book is rich, depicts how little luck or timing could change your life, it is probably difficult to understand if you’re not Asian beyond it being “fascinating”.
Again Koreans do better in storytelling. It’s dramatic, but that’s how it was in Japan up to the early 90s.
Life is a party, Fellini says. But here this novel tells you, life is a Pachinko. It’s not fair. You’re bound to lose, but you keep playing.
✔ Strong female characters ✔ Social differences in the American suburbs ✔ Mother and daughter relationship
🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ Women and their inner angers, and how the social class divides women. Their little angers start everywhere.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Borrowed from a colleague as I was working on this project. It starts slowly and as the title suggest little fires start in everyone. 2 families, opposite ideals, and different mothers different daughters with different fates.
The story goes around women and their inner angers, and how the social class divides women. Like when you talk about feminism you must also remember the class and the race, it's more complicated than we'd lightly assume.
It might be a bit too obviously girlie buddie book, but maybe I'm too harsh. Mia is great, she's the cool one, everything is all nicely done, but in this kind of books I always want characters to break down and go insane to be happy.
The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath, 1963 244 pages Read in 2026.03 Check the synopsis and details on amazon.com
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Il talento di Mr. Ripley
赤パンの本棚 akapan's bookshelf 