I first started reading this book in high school but I am glad I stopped. I don't think I would have appreciated it as much as reading it after graduating college. And perhaps I would have appreciated it even more if I have waited a couple years and read it in my late twenties.

"There is a difference between dissatisfaction with yourself and anger, depression."
It is refreshing to see such an organic and raw depiction of mental illness (Plath either suffered from chronic depression or BPD or both, the diagnosis isn't clear). Her writing is beautiful, as ever. I was a bit disappointed that the journals didn't contain bits from her time in the hospital but she only kept journals of very limited periods of her life.

"Society (my pet evil)."
Some things that stood out to me (besides her poetic prose) was how much she adored Hughes. She oscillated between her rejection of the 'feminine housewife' ideal and her desire to please Hughes and be a mother to his children. Her entries from her counseling sessions with RB are very introspective. You can see the conception of some of her most famous poems (Daddy and Lady Lazarus) here. Her descriptive entry on the birth of her second child, Nicholas, also refutes the common notion that people simply forget childbirth. Plath seems to have remembered it to a great detail.

Bits of her journals are incomprehensible descriptions of everyday happenings/recipes/thoughts jotted down that have no clear meaning except for the writer. Still, I cannot recommend this book enough. You can see the birth of all her poetry and The Bell Jar in this book.