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belzhar by meg wolitzerWhat: Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

Who: Children’s Simon & Schuster UK

When: October 1st 2014

How: A copy of this novel was provided by Simon & Schuster Australia for review.

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.

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I just don’t particularly know where to start talking about Belzhar. I know that I can say I had quite high hopes for this book – I mean, a girl who writes in a journal and is reunited with her dead boyfriend? Hells to the yeah. But I can also say that these hopes were, unfortunately, not met.

I found Jam (full name Jamaica – what is with YA books and names at the moment, seriously?) to be kind of an annoying character. She’s incredibly self centred and doesn’t really seem to care about anyone in her life, except in the most basic way possible. Her story is that her boyfriend, Reeve, died and she couldn’t cope with it so she was sent to a school for “the emotionally fragile”. Here she is given a journal and whenever she writes in it, she’s transported to Belzhar where she can be with him again.

I was kind of let down by Belzhar (the place). I thought it would be this once place where all the kids went and had super awesome fun magic times. But instead, it’s a different place for all of them, where whatever bad has happened hasn’t happened yet. Sure, this is kind of cool, but it got a little repetitive after a while.

I think the premise of the journals was quite interesting, but I’m not 100% sold on whether or not they were needed in this book. Especially since their powers or whatever were never truly explained. And besides, isn’t it a bit unprofessional and dangerous for the teacher to be giving out journals to teenagers when she knows weird shit goes down when they use them? Hello, duty of care!

The supporting cast of characters in Belzhar had heaps of potential, but each and every one of them fell flat. They all had these tortured pasts, but instead of uncovering them, it was like I was just told about them. Each of the characters just had a huge monologue that took up a few pages explaining what had happened to them and what they saw in Belzhar. This was a huge disappointment, because some of their stories were heartbreaking, and it was practically impossible to really care about their stories and what happened to them when they were such mechanical characters.

The ending. I’m just gonna come out and say that I did not like it. I guess perhaps it was going for the “shock” effect but I was left with more of a “WTF” feeling more than anything else. Like, I understand that everyone deals with events in their life in a different way, but what happened to Jam was so completely weird that it was hard to sympathise with her in any way. I was just left nonplussed by the whole thing.

All in all, Belzhar was a novel with an interesting concept that just fell flat for me.

© 2014, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.

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Posted on: October 14, 2014 • By: Chiara

16 Responses to Review: Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

  1. Names are getting quite ridiculous nowadays, aren’t they?

    I felt like the supporting cast had SO MUCH POTENTIAL. I wanted to hear more about their stories than Jam’s tbh. She bored me. But like you said, every just went downhill. Magic realism often just doesn’t make sense because the reality part gets in the way and you’re left thinking, “Why aren’t they fussed about all this weird shit going down?” Honestly, I’ve come to realise that perhaps magic realism isn’t for me…And that ending. God, I hated that ending so much. Fantastic review, Chiara! <3

    • Chiara says:

      THEY REALLY ARE, JESS. THEY REALLY ARE.

      The supporting characters’ stories were much more interesting. I remember Cee said in her review that she wishes the story had been from that girl who lost her brother’s perspective (can’t remember her name anymore). To be honest, I think that would have made the book a lot more interesting.

      I think this MAY be my first magic realism book, and I must say I wasn’t impressed with how the magic was handled. They just accepted it. Like, why weren’t they freaking out and going MAGIC IS REALLLLL???

      The ending was pretty bad, I must say. Shock factor was not there for me at all.

      Thanks, Jess! <3

  2. Thanks for a wonderful review, Chiara! I’m sorry to hear that it didn’t live up to your expectations – it sounds as though the idea itself had loads of potential. I recently received a surprise review copy, and after hearing mixed views on this book, I’m very interested to get a chance to read it and see what I think.

  3. Yep yep yep same with me. Didn’t like this one. And now you mention it, I didn’t like the whole monologue thing either. This had a really awesome premise – just a shame it didn’t turn out well in practice :(

    • Chiara says:

      Our thoughts were pretty similar, right? XD

      This keeps happening to me with so many books, though! I think it’s gonna be great and then it’s a two star read…

  4. manda says:

    “what is with YA books and names at the moment, seriously?”

    Ha ha ha, and here I thought I was the only one going crazy over YA names!

    I find a lot of the problem in YA nowadays is that the premise is great, but everything just falls flat. Or maybe that’s just because we’ve read so many books nothing surprises us any more?
    Anyway, great review. I’ll be skipping this one.

    • Chiara says:

      You’re definitely not the only one, Manda! They are annoying me, too.

      A lot of books have been falling flat for me lately, and I swear it’s getting harder to find books I really love. I’m hoping it’s just a phase and I’ll start reading good books again soon!

      Thanks, Manda! :)

  5. The ending was definitely a WTF moment for me. I just…I just completely no. NO. It was so petty and I ended up just absolutely not liking Jam at all. (I agree, though, what’s up with the names? Although if I read one more YA girl named Wren….*growls*). I soooo disappointed about this book.

    • Chiara says:

      I know, right! The pettiness was in spades and I was just sitting there with my eye twitching away in disbelief at the whole thing.

      I really don’t know what’s going on with names at the moment, either? WHY CAN’T THEY BE NORMAL?

      I was disappointed too, which is sad because I had pretty high hopes.

  6. Okay, I’m so glad I didn’t get a copy when I was at the bookstore the other day. I was *this* close to buying the hardback, but now I’ll make sure I resist next time! Besides the weird names *gross* I can’t stand it when there’s potential for sob-inducing tragic stories, but it’s info-dumped and then never mentioned again. It takes away all the emotional impact. Sorry you couldn’t get into it more! *still drooling about that UK cover though*

    • Chiara says:

      SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH. There was no emotional impact in this story whatsoever – from the main character’s story, to the side characters, to everything. It was such a disappointment, Kayla :(

      And yes, the cover is gorgeoussssss

  7. Sydney says:

    I understand fantasy names are going to be a bit on the weird side because, hey, it’s fantasy — but when it ISN’T fantasy and the names are weird I’m always like …what? ?? It’s OKAY to name your character something typical. But anyway, that’s besides the point.

    This is a bit of a letdown. :/ I’ve heard some mixed things about this one but I doubt I’ll be picking it up myself. The synopsis doesn’t really grab me and I don’t want to read a book that can’t grab me with a synopsis!

    Great review as always. <3

    • Chiara says:

      I KNOW. I’ve been reading the weirdest names in books lately and it’s just really annoying me D:

      The synopsis grabbed me because I thought there would be more Sylvia Plath (and I ADORE her). Unfortunately, her work made little appearance in the book at all. Boo.

      Thanks, lovely <3

  8. Valerie says:

    Blah I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve seen mixed reviews and had high hopes for this novel, but I guess it didn’t work out. I really want to get into magical realism, but I don’t think this is the book for me. (also reuniting with dead boyfriends, journals??? It just sounds so awesome!) Ah well

    • Chiara says:

      Yeah, I had pretty high hopes when I requested this novel, but they certainly weren’t met :/

      I want to see magic realism done well! And explained (at least somewhat). And the premise was so great, which is probably why I was so disappointed in this book.

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