Review: Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

Belzhar is the tale of wounded teenager, Jam Gallahue, who is sent to “a therapeutic boarding school” called The Wooden Barn to recover from the death of her boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She is among a small elite group of students chosen to take a legendary class, Special Topics in English. The five members of this group are classified as emotionally fragile and highly intelligent, each having undergone their own personal tragedy.

I don’t really see the high intelligence manifested in Jam. Sure, she is incredibly fragile when it comes to emotions, but the only other thing we know about her is that she has long hair. Oh, and she dated an English boy who died.

“I’m British, Jam, did you forget?”

No, nobody forgot, because Reeve’s defining characteristic is his nationality. If I were to reread this book, which I wouldn’t, I’d count how many times his country of origin is referenced. Not only is Jam’s relationship with him unbelievable due to its brevity (forty-one days, to be precise); it’s unbelievable because Reeve is a two-dimensional caricature.

The insipidness doesn’t end with Jam and Reeve. The other four members of the Special Topics in English have, for the most part, not endured truly traumatic life events, at least not to the degree in which they are portrayed. The only legitimately tragic situation is probably Sierra’s, whose eleven-year-old brother was abducted under her watch.

The story is rife with misdirection, such as Jam’s younger brother’s newfound kleptomania and her playing the role of goat doula for a night. There are all these entrances to various bunny trails that never actually lead anywhere. And Jam’s halfhearted relationship with Griffin? Is it really necessary that she recover from one relationship with another?

As for the supernatural element, the place the students call Belzhar, I personally was looking forward to discovering this new world, but that was before I knew what kind of world it would turn out to be. Basically, it is a place of grand delusion, a place the members of the class can go to pretend their great calamities never occurred. Belzhar does nothing but nurture denial, although I suppose at least one of our characters is thoroughly imbedded in denial anyway…

I can appreciate the link to the book’s namesake, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. In that book, the protagonist undergoes a sudden yet severe crisis in which she no longer wishes to exist. The characters in this book are like that, in a way. Their lives plummet abruptly, leaving them reeling from the struggle to adjust. But in Jam’s case, the catalyst for her plummet is not even based in reality.

Be warned: I cannot stress enough how much I despise the ending of this book.

It’s sad when you begin to sympathize with a stereotypical mean girl, who just so happens to be the protagonist’s nemesis, but there’s very little choice towards the end of this book. I had a difficult enough time feeling sorry for Jam before finding out what really happened to her. It’s beyond impossible to pity her after that discovery.

Mean Girl Dana Sapol has it right:

 “Good-bye and good riddance, you psycho loser.”