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    Belzhar
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    Belzhar
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    Belzhar
    Audiobook8 hours

    Belzhar

    Written by Meg Wolitzer

    Narrated by Jorjeana Marie

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 30, 2014
    ISBN9780553395976
    Unavailable
    Belzhar
    Author

    Meg Wolitzer

    Meg Wolitzer’s novels include The Female Persuasion; Sleepwalking; This Is Your Life; Surrender, Dorothy; and The Position. She lives in New York City.

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    Reviews for Belzhar

    3.5/5

    190 ratings26 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A YA novel with magic realism, a great twist, and a wonderful English teacher.
    • 2/5
      From the start I was hooked on "Belzhar". I loved the premise; with its touch of fantasy and how it dealt with grief. The setting was The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic school for emotionally fragile teenagers and at the centre of the story were five students chosen to complete the Special Studies in English subject. In this class the small group studied the works of Silvia Plath and kept a journal. However, when writing in their journal the students found themselves transported to Belzhar, a tranquil place where they could each revisit their tragedies and begin to heal.

      I loved their teacher, Mrs Q. Although she only made brief appearances throughout the novel, she had a great impact on the five teens with her compassion, life lessons and words of wisdom. I also really liked the four secondary characters - Casey, Sierra, Griffin and Marc. Each of them were suffering loss in some way and gradually their unique stories were revealed. Then there was Jam, the main protagonist. I was intrigued by the mystery that surrounded her and although I felt she was too self-involved in her own trauma, I still wanted to find out how Reeve, the love of her life, died. Finally, in chapter 19 (with only three chapters left) the author explained Jam's trauma. I couldn't believe what I was reading, her 'tragedy' was so weak and pathetic! I wanted to scream and hurl my book across the room (but didn't as I was reading on my iPad mini). I had been really enjoying "Belzhar" up to this point and would have easily rated it 4 stars, but after this chapter I was disgusted and soooo disappointed. To think Mrs Q had wasted a magical journal on Jam is an outrage!
    • 4/5
      I have never had such a hard time trying to decide whether or not I liked a book. If I look at this story in one way - I want to shout out to people how brilliant it is and spoil everyone by telling them about the part that made me gasp and throw the book across the room (don't worry, no damages were made!). And then when I turn around and look at the book the other way - I want to throw the book down, stomp on it and just say no, no, no!... I am still undecided. And I'm going to attempt to tell you why, which will be difficult because I have chosen to remain spoiler free. Our main character, Jam, has suffered a tragic loss. Her boyfriend Reeve is dead. After having only known him for less than 2 months, and dated him half that time, Jam's grieving seems a bit overboard to me. But, who am I to judge. I have lost a few distant relations and friends, and they touched me very deeply and I cannot imagine losing someone that close to me, but the feelings that she had just seemed a bit off to me... I had sympathy for Jam. But in all honesty, I felt like she was burying herself in sorrow on purpose. Trying to hide from something, perhaps... After a year has gone by and Jam shows no intentions of moving on, her parents decide to send her to The Wooden Barn - a therapeutic boarding school in Vermont. She is then forced to live with an interesting and nosey roommate, and she must attend all of her classes. Soon enough, the most sought after English class roster has been released and Jam finds herself in a classroom with four other students. No one knows why they were chosen for this elite class, and no one knows why it's so popular and also, so secretive and inclusive. And we all get a front row seat to see what "Special Topics English" is all about... Jam soon realizes that this class is more than just studying Sylvia Plath's works and writing in their new red journals. These journals offer a way to revisit their tragedies in a tranquil way in order to help them get over their loss - a place that they've decided to nickname BELZHAR. Because no one knows how BELZHAR works, this little group soon becomes close confidants and swear to watch out and support each other. Little by little they start to share what has happened to them, and each time, Jam holds back afraid to share her story. I got the feeling that she wasn't just afraid to fall into her deep sadness again and not be able to climb back out. But she was also afraid of what the others would think of her. And that was confusing for me. Any type of loss cannot compare to another person's undoing. I couldn't decide if Jam was dismissing her own feelings because her loss wasn't as huge an impact as the others, or if the other person's tragedy was up to par with hers. I have to admit. What kept me reading were the other four supporting characters - Casey, Marc, Sierra, and Griffin. I was completely intrigued with their stories and character development. While Jam was stagnant, the others were growing and accepting. It felt like Jam kept going around in circles and contradicting herself. She was supportive of the group facing their fears, healing and doing what they had to do to accept their lives in order to move on. And even though Jam was starting to create a life for herself at the school, participating in activities and taking an interest in the others, when it came to her own issues, she kept backtracking and daydreaming about Reeve and visiting BELZHAR. Even after she noticed that the things that were happening in BELZHAR weren't right and could never improve or be more than what it currently is. She was still determined to find a way to go back and be with Reeve even if it was unrealistic way to live.Because of my conflicts with this story, it just goes to prove that Meg Wolitzer is a brilliant writer. I believe that with this book being a homage to Sylvia Plath, the book aims to bring awareness to mental illness and that things are hardly ever what we think they are. Some things are more complicated and hard to explain and understand. And I have to admit, I had a very hard understanding Jam's story and how easily things seem to tie up in the end. We are told not to judge people, but we are only human and cannot help ourselves. We are taught to categorize things, and that is what happens. In my heart I know that Jam did not intentionally do the things she did just for attention, and that she was truly a broken-hearted girl. Who is to decide whether or not Jam's breakdown was legitimate or not? Especially without knowing the entire story. If you have read BELZHAR and wish to discuss or debate, please let me know! I have yet to discuss this book with anyone who has read it, and I am very interested in knowing if anyone feels as conflicted and emotionally drained as I do.I have not read any of Meg Wolitzer's other books, all from the adult genre. But I am in dire need to fix this soon. Her writing style and character development has captured me and I am curious to see what adult issues she has entwined into her stories. I'm also looking forward to seeing more YA books from her too! Cannot wait to hear about what she's working on now/next...*An ARC was sent to me from the publisher for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.
    • 4/5
      (This review is based on an advanced copy I received from the publisher.)I will admit that I cried. I wasn't expecting to. It was just one of those books that makes you relive emotions.Belzhar was an emotional read for me because I thought I had a connection to the main character, Jam. Unfortunately, for me, the ending took a turn for the worse and wasn't at all what I had been expecting for an outcome. However, despite the ending, Belzhar was a good book.I read Wolitzer's The Interesting's last year. It was good. It was long, but good. To sum up Wolitzer's writing style I would say that it is based on connections you make with the characters. In both books I have read from her the characters and their stories were what mattered. The other bits, the scenery and the dialogue was present, it just didn't matter... and I mean that in a good way.Belzhar began with Jam and her emotional state after losing her boyfriend of only 41 days. I would've liked to have seen more anxiety issues dealt with towards the beginning of the book, but those were shoved down until later. Jam doesn't want to be shipped off to a school for the emotionally unstable. She just wants to be left alone and be with her memories of Reeve, her dead boyfriend. As morbid as that sounds it is part of the grieving process, but in Jam's case she can't quite handle day-to-day life. We get to meet her new roommate DJ, her Special Topics in English classmates, and their teacher Mrs. Quenell. Everything about Mrs. Quenell and her class are a bit off. Mrs. Q gives them special antique journals for them to write in until the end of the semester. It was quite a shock to find magical realism in what I thought was going to be a book about dealing with teenage emotions. It seemed a bit too childish, but with the ending it made sense.The other characters in this book are much like they were in The Interestings- in fewer pages. I don't mean they were copies of those characters, just that they were very well developed and seemed to show up just at the right moments. Wolitzer is quite a brilliant writer. Belzhar left me with tears in my eyes at Jam's emotional state. I am glad that there were bits of magic, romance, and happiness in such a drab book. She certainly made it uniquely personal. But, it left me feeling awkward.It was almost as if this book couldn't be placed in any other genre besides magical realism. For me, it was unfortunate to have such a great story take it too far with such fragile characters. It was too cheesy and I felt a little betrayed at having read about characters I came to like and having them turned upside down.I would recommend Belzhar to anyone that is looking for an emotional read.
    • 3/5
      Jamaica "Jam" Gallahue meets an attractive exchange student and falls deeply, intensely in love. Then, suddenly and devastatingly, she loses him. A year later, she still has not recovered from her grief, and her parents send her to a boarding school for the intellectually gifted but "emotionally fragile." There, she is picked for a special, exclusive English class and tasked with keeping a journal. Soon, she and the others in the class discover that the act of writing in these journals transports you somewhere else, to a place where you once again have whatever important thing you might have lost.I've been reading a fair amount of YA lately, and I've discovered that it's very much a hit-and-miss genre for me. When I like it, I really, really like it. When I don't, I just can't seem to manage anything more than a meh.Unfortunately, this was one of the meh ones. Which is really too bad, because there are some themes here that do appeal to me, and one or two moments (admittedly not involving the main character) that have some real emotional resonance. But I could just never quite get into it properly. I never found most of the characters particularly identifiable or believable, and I certainly didn't find the dialog believable. The story's take on trauma and how to recover from it seems rather simplistic, too, and much of the time it all felt just a little too Afterschool Special to me. (Yeah, I know, I'm really dating myself with that reference. It's probably pretty clear I'm not in the actual target demographic for this!) Also, there's a revelation towards the end that felt simultaneously unsurprising and unjustifiable.Still, I feel a little bad for not liking it more. It's trying so hard to be emotionally affecting, and in so many ways it feels like it's almost managing it, but, still. In the end: meh.
    • 4/5
      Really liked this. It took me a few days to get through the audio simply because I'm so busy w/ work and holiday preparations but the story kept pulling me back. Full review at some point...
    • 5/5
      This book was such a page turner. I loved it. I was a bit worried knowing that there was a Sylvia Plath tie in that it might feel too melodramatic for my liking. It wasn't at all and I found it utterly engrossing. As always - I love a book that is set in a boarding school. I liked the array of characters that we were introduced to, and I felt the arc that Jam (the main character) went through - rang true and was well crafted.
    • 3/5
      Wolitzer's transition to YA takes on an often used trope, the out in the middle of nowhere boarding school. However, she populates it with some very interesting characters. The Wooden Barn school is a place where fragile students can come to recuperate and keep up on their studies. Jam arrives heartbroken at the loss of her boyfriend and find herself placed into a very exclusive class, Special Topics in English, which will be focusing on Sylvia Plath, the last semester Mrs. Quenell is going to teach it. Jam is joined by Griffin, Sierra, Marc and Casey, as they undergo some changes due to their journaling for class. Similar to the Gemma Doyle series (although in this century), the five face a bit of magical realism while learning to face the very things that make them candidates for this school.
    • 3/5
      I liked this book way better than the other book I read by this author of The Ten-Year Nap. Which to be honest, this book almost got missed because it sounded way out of my genre of typical reading choices. However I was pleased by this book. The author got my engaged in Jam and the rest of the students at Wooden Barn. They all had their own personal demons to face head on and the author did it in a nice way that the stories were not depressing but moving. Belzhar is a magic world. A world that I was memorized by just like Jam and her class mates. It is not hard to see why Jam had a hard decision to make between Belzhar and Reeve or the present. This book is different in a good way from the typical teen reads currently out there. It is about lost love, tragic loss, friends, growing up, and facing reality. I may check out this author's next book as it seems that she is getting better in my eyes.
    • 4/5
      If I could rate the book without the ending, we would easily be in the 4-4.5 range. The ending, however, disappointed me and left a sour taste in my mouth.
    • 3/5
      Jam is a teenager whose life has seemed to crumble around her, and she has been sent to The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school. She is selected for a class called Special Topics in English. As part of the class, students are given a journal. And when the students write in the journal, something that is unexplained happens to them and helps them along on their journeys to recovery. Also helpful is the strong bond the student's in the class develop. A slow starter for me, the book kind of pulled me in as I got to learn the back stories of some of Jam's friends. Although when Jam revealed her truth, I just felt...let down. While the book had moments that were compelling, I was largely unsatisfied and disappointed after it had come to its conclusion.
    • 3/5
      Jam Gallahue, a teenager who has just suffered a breakdown over a boy, narrates the story. She and a group of other fragile teens land at a boarding school where they learn to deal with their depression through journaling. Five students are selected for a Special Topics English class where they study Sylvia Plath for the entire semester. Belzhar refers to The Bell Jar, Plath's autobiographical novel about her own breakdown. A bell jar serves as a vacuum and the students in the Special Topics class are trapped as well in their own vacuum of a world. Writing in their journals and bonding with the other Special Topics students unleashes them from being stuck in their world.
    • 4/5
      This was a short quick read that I found to be well written. It had a slightly sappy ending, but the premise of 5 emotionally scarred teens learning to rely on each other and face their problems was intiguing. Although the magical realm of Belzhar sounds very fantasy heavy, the book actually reads more like a standard fiction novel. The final realization of Jam's past had a nice twist that made me think of her in a different light and I liked the symbolic thread of words having meaning that ran throughout. A good quick read.
    • 3/5
      The concept of this book appealed to me quite a bit - the writing, characters, plot and everything was going along fine, but then I felt it stagnated. I wanted more of the connection between the Special Topics students - more from the late night meetings around the single candle flame. More intricacy and interest could have been developed, so for me, it fell short. As another reviewer mentioned, the ending was flat, lifeless, and trite. I had such hope for the book - I'm a sucker for the offbeat school / English class saving the kids kind of story, but this one just didn't deliver.
    • 5/5
      After her boyfriend dies, Jam Gallahue's parents send her to The Wooden Barn, a boarding school designed to help teens deal with grief and loss. In Special Topics in English, Jam and a few of her fellow students face a semester of reading Sylvia Plath and writing in the odd red journals given to them by their teacher. But the students soon learn that these are not ordinary journals. Wolitzer does a good job slowly revealing information to help us get to know Jam and her friends and providing some insights into the difficult process of grieving as well.
    • 4/5
      A great teacher, a mystical journal, and friends are what it takes to heal Jam Gallahue. Since the loss of her boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield, Jam has not been able to cope. She has sunken into a depression that even her psychiatrist can not penetrate. Finally, her parents send her to a boarding school of "emotionally fragile" teens in rural Vermont, the Wooden Barn.Jam gradually begins to make friends at the school, become involved in activities, and recover, but she cannot let go of Reeve. She is assigned to a special English class with the legendary Mrs. Quenell. This is to be Mrs. Q's last class before retirement, and she has hand selected the five students who will participate in a semester-long study of Sylvia Plath. She gives each student an ancient red leather journal and tells them they must turn the journals in on the last day of class.The first time Jam writes in her journal, something miraculous happens. She is transported to the playing fields near her old school, and Reeve is waiting for her. They are able to spend time together, and Jam believes that this has saved her life. She soon finds that everyone in her class is being transported to the place in their past just before the traumatic event occurred which landed them in the Wooden Barn. This secret bonds them together.Jam eventually finds herself attracted to a boy from Special Topics, Griffin. She must decide whether to hang on to Reeve in the mysterious world the group has named Belzhar or fall in love with Griffin who is alive and very interested in her. What will happen when they run out of pages in their journals? Each member of the group has to make decisions about what they will do with their lives.The resolution is a little less than satisfying. Each character in the class shared the traumatic and tragic events that led them to the school, but Jam withholds her own story. When we finally learn it, it seems a bit of a letdown; however, it demonstrates the emotional fragility of adolescents.I would recommend this book to young adult readers. I think girls would like it more than boys due to the female narrator and the focus on romance.
    • 5/5
      Misfits who have been invited into a special topics writing class in an already special school for troubled youth find their way through writing to cope with their pasts and daunting obstacles. This YA title champions the power of writing and the power of community to engender healing.
    • 4/5
      This is a YA novel (written by the author of "The Interestings" which I also enjoyed. It is the story of a girl who goes through a traumatic experience that she cannot seem to get over. So her parents send her to a school for young adults who are trying to work through their own emotional experiences. While there, she is placed in "Special Topics" English class with four other students. And through this class, the wonderful teacher of the class, and the amazing (magical?) journals that they are required to write in, each of the students works through his/her emotions. But how they get there is very unusual.
      I enjoyed this book a lot. There is the normal teen angst, but it didn't bother me, and I liked the main character. I would recommend this book, especially to YA readers (of any age!).
    • 2/5
      So I was actually really enjoying this until the big twist reveal. That kind of changed the book for me b/c I felt like it changed the tone of the book and like maybe it was modeling some bad behaviors. Until then I liked the interaction of the group of main characters and I felt like the language was very beautiful (although not necessarily realistic to the way teenagers speak.)
    • 3/5
      While I think another reader may like this more, I didn't like it as much as I'd hoped. And those hopes were high. A New England Boarding School for "emotionally fragile, highly intelligent teens", a Special English Class where you ONLY read Sylvia Plath, Magical Diaries that take you to another world (!!). I should have loved it. It should have been my favorite book.

      And its not that it is Not A Good Book, its just Not the Book I Wanted. I wanted more Boarding School Fantasy, I wanted more of Plath and the Bell Jar, and I wanted more of the Magic. In fact, I felt that Wolitzer was a little...afraid of the magic in the book. Like she didn't want to get "too much into it" or "make such a big deal out of it" because "I don't write fantasy". I also felt that the book was thin, in many many places. So often we're "told" rather than "shown". I'm Told that the MC and Sierra are Besties now, rather than seeing that relationship develop, for example.

      I did, however really like the ending. Okay, not the "ending"-ending (as in the last few pages/images from the book) but What Happens In the End, the Big Reveal, I thought was the most compelling thing about it.

      But I couldn't get over this sinking feeling that Wolitzer doesn't really know YA books, or like YA books very much. Because this didn't have the emotional weight of so many great YA reads, and in the end pulls a lot of punches that need not have been pulled.
    • 2/5
      I got this book because I've read a couple other of Meg Wolitzer's books and liked them. Being that the other books I read were adult fiction, I was immediately confused by this one. It's incredibly juvenile. Ten pages in, I flipped to the back cover and realized it was published by Dutton Books For Young Readers. Oh. It's a YA novel. I would still argue that the good YA novels don't read as "juvenile." This book is really, really immature and kind of silly.There are parts of the plot that are okay. The premise is that a bunch of students with various psychological problems are at a school for "highly intelligent and emotionally fragile" youth. A group of them all get put in a special English class. The topic of their class is Sylvia Plath. They are told to write in journals as part of their school work. They discover that when they do, they get transported to another world, which they called Belzhar (a play on Bell Jar). Um, this is rather ridiculous.There are a couple major things that bothered me: 1) Jam, the main character, turns out to be an annoying navel-gazer who isn't trustworthy as a narrator; 2) Mental illness, grief, guilt, etc are treated very superficially, which is a real shame since many young people struggle with this stuff in a serious way. If I read this book as a teen, after dealing with something horrific, I would be insulted. It also bothers me that Sylvia Plath got pulled into this. Her writing was so nuanced, sophisticated, and complex and shouldn't have to be associated with a book like this. Is this book supposed to be a tribute to Plath? If so, it didn't do a good job, sorry.
    • 2/5
      Good writing and fairly entertaining but kind of lame "twist."
    • 4/5
      I read this in a day. It was easy to put down while other things were happening (conversations, driving, sleeping) and then pick it right back up again as if no time had been lost. It's a fast read, interesting, and definitely a page turner. It's a book I definitely thought about while I wasn't reading it.It's about a girl (Jam, short for Jamaica) who loses the love of her life---although she only knew him for a mere 41 days, the feelings were so strong she is completely and utterly devastated by the loss. Like, well beyond normal processing. After so much time (nearly a year) has passed and her parents and teachers and friends simply do not know what to do with her, she is sent off to a school for special people (The Wooden Barn) --- for students who are intelligent but fragile.Jam is placed into a class, Special Topics in English, which is apparently one of the most difficult classes to be placed in, and she has not even requested such placement. Jam's roommate is supremely jealous, having attempted to take the class herself, but Jam is, frankly, uninterested in all of it. She goes because she must. There are five students in the class. Their teacher, Mrs. Q, assigns one author for the semester and requires her class to write in journals that she provides. The author is Sylvia Plath.As the class progresses, it becomes clear that the students in the class have emotions, responses, feelings, psychologies, or something else in common with Ms. Plath, and they slowly begin to open up with each other and Mrs. Q. Of course, other very strange things are happening to the students. I will quote the publisher blurb so as not to give anything away that has not already been given: Jam and her classmates are led "into a mysterious other world she and her classmates call Belzhar{. There}, she discovers a realm where the untainted past is restored, and she can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But, as the pages of her journal begin to fill up, Jam must to confront hidden truths and ultimately decide what she’s willing to sacrifice to reclaim her loss."It's a book that falls squarely into the magical realism category, which adds just the right amount of uncertainty, mystery, and mysticism to a story that is otherwise a teen drama about friendship, love, loss, and discovery. Although I do not typically love teen romance books, I really enjoyed Wolitzer's book that is more about the loss of love and recovery than anything else. It has its flaws .. some of the trauma that others have gone through seem much more severe than Jam's, yet she continues to mope in self-obsession and self-pity -- but I also felt that was actually pretty realistic for the teenage perspective. It is rather self-obsessed and has a hard time looking outside to gain perspective. And there are some "conveniences" that are a bit eye-roll'y, but overall, as I said, I just enjoyed it. It helps that I read it so quickly, I'm sure. THREE AND A HALF of 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      In Belzhar, a group of teens at a therapeutic boarding school are specially chosen to be in an English class that will explore Sylvia Plath’s Bell Jar. Each of the five students have been unable to move on from some devastating incident in their life. For our narrator Jam, it was the death of her first boyfriend Reeve. Throughout the book, the backstory of each of the teens is slowly revealed. I read Belzhar through in one sitting because I had to know what happened between Jam and Reeve. I couldn’t put the book down until the reveal/twist, when I wanted to throw it down. I’ve reconsidered somewhat having had some time to reflect on Wolitzer’s choice of a twist, but having just read We Were Liars, I wanted a similarly unexpected and devastating reveal. The end redeemed a little with the other characters issues tied up and the revelation of the teacher’s reason for choosing a Sylvia Plath novel. The book has lots of messages; the importance of reading good literature to help students deal with the pain in their life, the importance of students finding their own voice, and how facing up to your pain and moving on makes you a stronger person better prepared for adulthood.
    • 3/5
      I liked the premise of Belzhar, but the execution did not always work for me. Sure it has a very strange turn of events that I was not expecting, but it's the way everyone acted about these events that bothered me most. I get that this world of Belzhar—an alternative reality this “breakfast club” journeys to when writing in their journals where their various traumas never happened—that this world isn't truly real, that it may even just be symbolic of the process of grief writing, but I do expect the characters to respond to it in realistic ways. What's amazing is that Wolitzer developed these characters in a way which they actually resemble real teenagers, yet they act like complete morons when Belzhar is revealed: What if someone finds out? We might get kicked out of school. And we shouldn't tell our mysterious English teacher who may very well have dropped out of the Twilight Zone and clearly knows what's going on. And Ms. Quenell seems to lack considerable common sense for someone as mature—and other worldly—as she is. To me, it seemed some of the characters actions were forced in order to fulfill the requirements of the plot.That being said, Jam's big reveal toward the end was amazing in so many ways. First of all, it was unexpected. Second, it made her character so much more interesting and faceted. And third, it showed how much the author understood the mind of a slightly-neurotic teenage girl. I loved this moment and those that followed; it erased some of my previous annoyances about the characters being unrealistic.This was my second exposure to Wolitzer's work and I truly enjoy her style and ideas. This one was written for a teenage audience and I think that distanced me somewhat from the story. Overall, it was a little light on character and language throughout, but in the end, I do have to give Wolitzer kudos for adding an extra dimension or two to our protagonist.
    • 4/5
      Die fünfzehnjährige Jam hat einen schweren Schicksalsschlag zu bewältigen, mit dem sie nicht fertig wird. Der Junge, den sie liebt, ist gestorben. Sie kommt nun in ein Internat für traumatisierte oder sonst irgendwie "fragile" Jugendliche.In einem Literaturkurs entdecken sie und vier weiter Jugendliche Zugang zu ihren Problemen. Dabei spielt auch ein fantastisches Element eine Rolle, das mich aber nicht weiter gestört hat. Viel interessanter waren die Jugendlichen selbst und wie sie mit ihren Traumata umgingen.Ich mochte das Buch. Es ist gut geschrieben und gut zu lesen. Das Ende ist auch gut und folgerichtig, dennoch fühlte ich mich fast irgendwie betrogen- seltsam, aber so ist es tatsächlich.