Six Degree of Seperation- The Bell Jar

[I'm probably late to the party, but this site is so fun]

I love the idea behind this meme and meant to participate last month but completely forgot- Annabel and Emma  are geniuses! The guidelines are posted at the bottom, but basically what you do is start off with their selection, this month The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and then take off from there (come on, guys, you know the drill- Kevin Bacon style!). Try it!

I'm going with short and sweet, but I'll try to best to justify my connections. 

The Bell Jar reminds me in some ways of The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, and not just because they're both books we've read at work. Literary authors writing from the teenage angst perspective, New York, mental instability... 

The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud, which I actually did not care for when I read it a very long time ago. I do remember rolling my eyes at the group of spoiled rich kids with supposed problems, just like I occasionally had to do so at Holden.

The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer, is also about a group of friends, who met at summer camp, all of which but one are very wealthy. They too have their issues, and it is also set, primarily, on the East Coast.

Summer Camps can be a lot like temporary little communes, much like the one in Arcadia by Lauren Groff. There a bunch of hippies learn that it's not always easy to live in peace and harmony. 

Also living together in an unsettling situation are those in the novel Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez, about a closed in city of people who are not suffering from a population-threatening pandemic. 

This of course naturally ties to The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The end of the world is so depressing (just like The Bell Jar- full circle! Boom!).