It all depends whose side you’re on at the end of the day, doesn’t it? If you lean more towards Plath than Hughes for any reason, then this is the biography for you. It’s well-written, hugely engrossing – I suspect so even for those who come to it knowing nothing about Sylvia and her amazing poetry – and it dishes up some real dirt on Hughes and his family. A cracking good read about a poet who died before her time and was, indeed, the poet of the 20th century in my opinion. If it wasn’t for Sylvia, I’d never have started writing poems. So blame her. It’s okay, you can – she committed suicide in 1963. And many of us know who drove her to that, don’t we?