The Bell Jar

A girl lives in an out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can't afford a magazine and then she gets a scholarship to college... and ends up steering New York like her own private car. Only I wasn't steering anything. Not even myself. Summer in New York, Esther Greenwood knows she's supposed to be having the time of her life, but she's on the edge of a darkness that makes her world increasingly unreal. In his vivid, unforgettable novel, Esther's vision of the world shimmers and shifts: her day-to-day city life, crazed men-friends, hot dinner dances, and a slow slide into breakdown.