Metaphorical

I do recommend reading Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer.  I enjoyed the premise of a boarding school with a special topics in English class....and the students and teacher that might participate in one like this.

Reviews on Amazon show that some people dislike the ending, but it truly didn't bug me in the least.

It deals metaphorically with grief, trauma, loss....life...in a perfectly realized story.

I enjoyed the character's, though at time's I felt DJ's was a bit contrived...and at times I thought she would end up being invited somehow to the special topics class.

I thought each of the other scenarios depicted, each of the trauma's suffered by the characters in the special topics class were fairly well done.  I can imagine a kid like Griffin reacting the way he did...denial, numb, stunted etc.

Sierra's was perfectly depicted, and her actions in the end made sense, whereas it wouldn't have made sense for Jam to do the same...the process in Jam's decision making did make sense (while writing her last journal entry), given the actual circumstances of her reason's for being at the school.

Marc and Casey were also developed well, in the limited sense of not expanding their stories...we can picture those families; divorce, and families in denial about alcoholism until a terrible event occurs etc...

Trauma can be relative, and thus when we learn Jam's truth we need to keep that in mind. As I said, the ending doesn't bug me; it actually is fitting in the human/teen world, where sometimes we wonder why a kid with seemingly everything is depressed...words matter is one of the novel's premises, and words truly mattered to Jam.....what was said (or not said) by Reeve  (and Dana ) etc...breakdown's happen that don't make sense to those outside of the person's story. 

This is my second Wolizer book (the other being The Fingertips Duncan Dorfman) and I will now stray into her non-YA titles, since I have truly enjoyed the writing in the books I have read.