Complex and real. Messy and complicated. It’s oddly refreshing to find books with older protagonists to connect with. This is more than a sad girl drama trend, it’s realistic fiction that has you connecting.

Martha knows something is wrong with her after "an explosion in her brain" as a teen. However, she is able to live her life as best as she can cope with multiple diagnoses and medications that just don't seem to work. Her husband, Patrick, is as supportive as he can be and tries to "attack the day," each day with her. The novel follows Martha in somewhat present day and flashes back to the moments that have led up to her moving back to her parents house on the brink of a second divorce.
At first, I had a hard time getting into this novel. About a third of the way through, though, I was into it and emotionally invested in Martha as a character who struggles with coping with her diagnoses and finally the correct diagnosis of "x." By the end, I found myself going back to the beginning of the novel to really appreciate the introduction to Martha's lens.
This was a beautifully written and poignant novel about the struggles and stigma around mental health diagnoses. Written from Martha's POV, it allows readers to empathize with Martha. I loved the ending that felt like it tied back to the beginning with more clarity of what was happening with Martha internally. Mason's characters are empathetic, flawed, and make very human mistakes that I think readers can relate to any aspect of the characters. Overall, 4.5 rounded to 5.

In Meg Mason's "Sorrow and Bliss," Martha Russell, who narrates, has had serious psychological problems since she was seventeen. After she completes her studies, she applies for jobs that are, for the most part, menial and unchallenging. Martha loves her kindly dad, Fergus, but she is embarrassed by her mother, Celia, an alcoholic who has never given her daughters, Martha and Ingrid, the nurturing that they needed. When Martha meets Jonathan, a handsome and successful bachelor, she is swept off her feet. Unfortunately, she does not realize that, until she achieves emotional stability, she will never be able to sustain a long-term relationship with any man.

This is a tragicomedy in which humorous scenes are followed by heartbreaking passages in which Martha, an unreliable narrator if ever there was one, experiences meltdowns that she cannot control. She is a lost soul whom we pity, but she also arouses feelings of profound exasperation. She flits around from doctor to doctor, takes pills, stops taking pills, and when things are particularly bad, spends days in bed, unable to eat, bathe, or communicate meaningfully with friends and family.

Rather than giving Martha a diagnosis, Mason tells us in "a note on the text" that "the portrayal of treatment, medication, and doctors' advice is wholly fictional." This a mistake, since specifying what ails Martha would lend believability to the story. Particularly far-fetched is Martha's second marriage to a saintly man, a physician who puts up with her rages and despondency for years. A more appealing character is Martha's younger sister, Ingrid, a warm and loving wife and mother. Ingrid and Martha's wealthy Aunt Winsome is also good-hearted—"an adult, someone who took care, who loved order and beauty." She does her best to lift her nieces' spirits and lend a hand to the impoverished Celia and Fergus. Ultimately, however, in "Sorrow and Bliss," Meg Mason falls short in her attempt to construct a coherent and satisfying plot incorporating romance, humor, and an exploration of the anguish of mental illness.

This story is one woman's journey into mental illness with an undiagnosed disorder. She functions remarkably well at times but sinks into the depths of despair and destruction at others. Sounds like a depressing book but it isn't because of the humor and witty observations made by the memorable characters. I love the sister and her dry wit and the father's acceptance. I even found the first husband's idiosyncrasies -- white pants and always tan--compelling along with his nastiness. Addressing motherhood and mental illness, the narrative is not light but it is a good read.

copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

Meg Mason's debut novel, “Sorrow and Bliss,” is filled to the brim with sharp insights on mental illness, devastating and beautiful emotions, and deeply relatable characters. The story follows Martha and jumps back and forth from her experiences growing up with her parents and sister in an unconventional, artistic, and fairly traumatic home to her 20s and 30s when she marries twice, and searches for purpose. Throughout her lift she struggles with periods of extreme depression and various mental health issues and tries, in vain, for years to heal herself for the sake of her own life and her relationships, especially the ones with her sister and her childhood friend, turned husband, Patrick.

Love is not a strong enough word for how I felt about this book, which I devoured and immediately recommended to so many people. If you enjoyed by Sally Rooney’s books or “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” by Gail Honeyman, I highly recommend you pick up this book too!

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC of Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason!

This book is heartwarming yet heartbreaking. Martha has battled with an unnamed mental illness for most of her life. Her misdiagnoses and changing medication lead to complicated relationships with her family and, most of all, her husband. This book is beautifully written and perfectly showcases how having a mental illness can affect you and the people around you. I think this book is perfect for fans of Sally Rooney and Dolly Alderton.

[4.25 stars]

This story about a woman named Martha who struggles with depression and mental illness is told with a wry, deadpan humor you wouldn't expect to go along with this topic...and I loved this counterbalance. The book alternates between present day and flashing back to Martha’s childhood and early courtship with Patrick, her husband who leaves her following her 40th birthday party in the opening chapter of the book. This book grew on me the farther and farther I read and it's not as heavy as you'd expect!

This book wrecked me. The author's portrayal of mental illness felt so spot on (I live with mental illness, so this was especially important). Even the way it was written, with parts of conversations in quotation marks and some without. It took me some time to adapt to this style, but once I did, the pages couldn't turn fast enough.

I don’t want to recount the storyline because I don’t think I can do it justice, but here goes:

Martha is the narrator. She is a sister, daughter, and wife. She also lives with mental illness. As did her mother (also alcoholism) and possibly grandmother. Ingrid is her sister. They are inseparable until Ingrid gets married and starts a family. Still super close, though.

Patrick has been in love with Martha since they were teenagers. He is patient, kind…an ER doctor who does médecins sans frontiers. He is much like her father, who had similar attributes, although he was an unpublished (?) poet rather than a doctor.

Martha’s mother and aunt, Winsome, also have a close relationship, though full of conflict. Even Patrick, who was a friend of Winsome’s son, Oliver, had been spending the Christmas holidays at Belgravia, with the family. Clearly they all loved and took care of one another.

Obviously, love is a HUGE theme in this book. With a title like Sorrow and Bliss, how would it be any other?

This gets 5 stars because I went through a handkerchief and two tissues getting through the last third of the book. I highly recommend this book for its honesty and love.

My thanks to Harper and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley & Meg Mason, for my copy of Sorrow and Bliss for an honest review. Martha, has known for ever that something was off with her. It seemed that those around her didn’t notice or didn’t mention it. But how could she feel the way she felt and find happiness. After marrying, for the first time to a man who is wealthy and can provide a wonderful life and she still can’t find peace, is when Martha, really falls apart and recollects her entire life. She has to move back home and realize that her drama haven’t come true and that something has to change. How can she be so hopelessly sad? How can she find peace for her mind. While home, everyone has a great job, marriage or babies. Martha has to decide will she marry again? Would she be capable of having a child? And can a man she has know for a long time, be the answer? This book was so well written. Mental Health issues are not pretty but Meg Mason found some bright spots, in Martha’s character finding the truth. I really enjoyed the honesty this book presented. The questions and answers a person with a mental issue must muddle through. This was a four star star read for me. I have shared my opinion on my Instagram page and shared my review on Barnes & Noble.

At the opening of Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss, Martha’s marriage is disintegrating. When she was 17, “a little bomb went off” in her brain – a sudden, violent onset of mental illness that has characterised her life ever since. Now she is middle-aged, and a resurgent wave of that same mental illness is threatening to wipe her out. The pain is causing her to lash out at her husband, Patrick, who has been in love with her since she was 16. She rebuffs his incessant cheerfulness with small, barbarous cruelties, pushing him further and further away. When he eventually leaves her, it isn’t exactly a shock, but the event causes her to reflect on everything that has led up to this final blow. Written with wit and compassion, Sorrow and Bliss recounts Martha’s attempt to sift through the debris of her unconventional life in order to gain some understanding of herself, and to seek out the source of her damage.

Mason has imbued Martha with many gifts. She possesses a glittering intelligence, laser-like powers of observation, and a deliciously bone-dry sense of humour. Her pithy, deadpan observations on her family and career fly like sparks from the page. Whilst the book’s content is not exactly ground-breaking, Mason’s sharp sense of humour makes it feel fresh. Mason also draws striking attention to the delicate, transitory details of everyday life – Martha appreciates, for example, the way a passing cloud makes the light flicker on her sister’s face, or the way the veins in her husband’s hands bulge as he grips the steering wheel. The precision of her description elevates otherwise mundane scenes into something that feels extraordinary.

Full review available at Bookbrowse, see link.

Mason’s brilliant novel, Sorrow and Bliss should be read by everyone seeking to better understand mental illness. There is great sorrow within these pages, as well as incredible wit. The book opens in the present, as Martha’s marriage appears to be ending. As she reflects back on her past, we learn that as a teen she began to withdraw, experiencing severe depression. Doctor after doctor failed her.
This may not sound like a riveting read. I can’t do it justice. I will just say I could not put it down and delisted it’s serious subject, I laughed throughout at the humorous turn of phrase. Sorrow and Bliss is going down as one of my favorite reads. Mason’s empathetic insight into her characters motivation is remarkable.
Highly recommended.

This novel describes what it feels like to live with mental illness, but it is still funny and warm and entertaining. Something happened in Martha's brain as a child-- bipolar disorder, perhaps? It's never named, but it's made life difficult for her and the people around her ever since. Martha-- and the people in her life-- are all splendidly realized characters, and their unpredictable, witty conversations made me laugh out loud a number of times.. This is a book for readers who enjoy Marissa de los Santos, Anne Tyler, and perhaps the book Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine.

We are lucky to be getting introspective womanhood writing from so many great contemporary authors. Meg Mason certainly matches Jenny Offill in her character’s self-awareness and Ottessa Moshfegh in her dark humor. Mason does not tread lightly when it comes to depression, as our main character Martha is struggling to function in daily life and her marriage due to an unnamed mental affliction. “Sorrow and Bliss” does not glamorize mental illness, we see Martha doing ugly things and treating others poorly, but there is also a journey of self-discovery going on. There are unmissable themes of complicated family dynamics, motherhood, and dysfunctional relationships.

In some ways, “Sorrow and Bliss” is a tragic love story told in reverse, but that is an oversimplification. I had a hard time getting into it at first because Martha comes from a big family with a lot of back story, but after the 60% mark, the plot really comes together and I started to identify more with the characters. This is a slow paced book with lovely and sometimes very funny dialogue. It’s a solid 4 star from me!

Tw: discussions of mental health

Sorrow and Bliss follows a woman in her 40s. She tells you the story of her life in flashback, from her childhood and her struggles with her mental health. A focus on sadness but undercut with humor to deflate her feelings about her life. This book would appeal to those that find the average British humor interesting and relatable but I found the writing itself to be chunky and the mental health insensitively done.

This was a one of the best books I've read in the past year. It was a compelling story of mental health issues, the challenges of approaching middle age, and navigating family relationships. Highly recommended!

This was a raw and honest look at mental illness, the stigma surrounding it, and how it can affect lives for generations. I found it believable and relatable and well told. And though this book is about mental illness and the havoc it can cause, this book was not an overall depressing read. In fact, I found it hopeful but not in a rose-colored-glasses way.

An empathetic yet unflinching portrayal of mental illness. Martha has been suffering from an unspecified mental illness since her late teens. The book shows her family life in the past and how her illness impacts her marriage (her husband Patrick is a doctor) in the present.
This book was a difficult read and I found its time-jumping format challenging at times, but worthwhile in the end,

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason is a debut novel about a disillusioned woman, Martha, who finds herself alone in her highbrow gated community in Oxford after her husband leaves her. Martha was a woman at the top thriving in Paris and working at Vogue but now finds herself far from that as mental health deteriorates her ability to cope as all her treatment options fail to help. To get away from the unbearable claustrophobia of her current life, Martha escapes to London to live with her parents to try and make sense of how she got here and figure out what is next for her.

This novel was a unique novel that explores the impact of mental illness and how chronic mental illness with unsuccessful therapies can erode one's life and the lives of those around them. However on the flip-side this book also shows the beauty that a support system and successful therapeutic intervention can provide in changing the lives of those struggling with mental illness. Martha is a complex character that at times you will want to shake and at other times want to wrap in a hug. The tone of this book is serious and at times heavy but left me reflecting a lot on mental health and how we treat those around us with invisible conditions. Overall I recommend this book for those wanting a book that explores the complexity of mental illness in a novel that slowly develops.

Many thanks to the publisher Harper and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I'm still reeling from Sorrow and Bliss. I don't remember the last book that made me cry like this one did, but I'm so grateful for its existence. Meg Mason paints a heartbreaking but heartfelt portrait of a woman struggling with severe mental illness, and the effects her illness has on her family, her work, her relationships, and eventually the disintegration of her marriage.

Not only are the characters beautifully developed, but they're quirky, relatable, and memorable. Mason tackles subjects beyond mental illness, touching on alcoholism and drug abuse, suicide, divorce, pregnancy, and family relationships with empathy. Though the illness Martha struggles with goes unnamed, we as readers are let in on her innermost thoughts as she attempts to find equilibrium, while still managing to self-sabotage at the same time. Yet at the end, we're left feeling completely and utterly hopeful.

Thank you NetGalley for the epub arc!

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Martha is a writer who has spent her life hiding from her illness. Once she receives clarification, she falls apart only to be rescued from an unlikely source.

Beautiful story and wonderful characters. I love this novel.