Welcome to Litsy!

Finished yesterday, started back in December.

It follows Martha in a somewhat meandering but sort of linear path as she navigates her life and marriage while dealing with her mental illness. Martha is witty and sarcastic. She has family and a husband who love her. But she knows something is wrong with her and doesn‘t know how to be better. I appreciated the way the author realistically portrayed Martha navigating her mental illness. ⬇️

Last book of the year and what a book it was! I thought this was going to be really literary and boring but, like Fleabag, it‘s real, gritty and raw. I laughed and cried and absolutely loved every damn page. Best book of the year and one of my top ten favs of all time! (Plus it‘s only 99p on kindle at the mo 👍)

#AdventRecommends December 4th

This was on this year‘s Women‘s Prize for Fiction Longlist. I‘m so glad it was because I‘m not sure I would have read this otherwise.

A book about mental health and how important a diagnosis is . About a woman who know that something is wrong with her, and how this effects her closest relationships; husband, sister and parents.

Human relationships feel messier the more clarity we attain about them. Questions morph into resolutions and resolutions morph into bigger questions darting around in a futile attempt to thread together something resembling a resolution. What these questions instead get is a mosaic whose edges have those infinitesimal gaps not discernable to the naked eye....(continued in comments)

I highly recommend this laugh-out-loud funny, but heart-breaking book about family, love, mental illness and life. It was just terrific.

This was a brilliant book. A really excellent portrayal of a young woman suffering with mental illness, and the impact on her life, relationships & those around her.

Plus, bingo! #bookspinbingo

Love this! I‘m all for drinking the champagne if you‘re feeling blue 🥂🍾

#Littenswanttoknow @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
Till last year,I absolutely never let a book go unfinished and forced myself to finish it.After a couple of terrible reads, however,in the last 6 months,where I could tell I hated the book but continued and the books didn't improve,I've started stopping because I'm growing older and have no more time to waste!

This was……hmm. It‘s hard to say that I “enjoyed” it, because while I did enjoy some parts (even laughing out loud at times), it is ultimately a book about someone with severe mental illness. And, it‘s a bit of a mystery, as we are never told what the illness is. At first I thought I knew, but then realized that wasn‘t it 😂 So I‘m perplexed now 😂 🤷‍♀️

Off to an engaging start!
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#booknerd #pinkhair #librarynerd #librarylover

A troubling story of a woman + an unnamed mental illness. I felt constantly on edge as Martha narrated her life with a manic mother, a patient father, a sister who manages life just about, + her devoted husband. I want to talk abt it even though I found in turns; frustrating, tender, annoying,+sad. Still thinking abt the bk as it touches on an important issue of mental illness in an accessible way which has to be positive despite some problems.

You guys.

I can't do this book justice in the space provided here.

We know from the get go how things turn out for Martha, but that doesn't take anything away from watching it all unfold.

Martha suffers for years before getting a proper diagnosis for her mental illness. The author chooses not to name the illness - instead referring to it as ____. And that is just one example of the brilliance of this story.

Just read it.

I wanted to finish this sooner, but sadly due to a 3+hour evacuation from my workplace in the sun (with pale, Scottish skin) meant that wasn't to be. I completed it at night, whilst nursing my sunburn.
I genuinely liked this book to begin with, the flashbacks and little snippets of info that would later make sense. However, as it progressed I became annoyed at the narcissist tendencies of Martha, who defined herself by her mental illness.

Did I like this book? No. Did I love this book? Yes I think so. Will it stick with me? 100%. We follow a main character who grapples with / bobs along in her life without really ever connecting. She‘s damaged, causes chaos and hurt along the way and yet to me was extremely relatable and I want her next chapter to be more. The writing is spectacular. Pulling the reader into the narrative. First was in a while that‘s really had impact.

I am off on annual leave today, looking after my 2 girls. I got up at 5am, ran 5.5km, showered then sat down in silence with my breakfast and ☕ , and read this beauty for almost an hour before the rest of the house stirred.

Moments like this are bliss!

This is a hard one to rate.
I truly liked reading the story but found it quite triggering and desperately sad. I had to keep stopping to do anything other than think about it.

Gosh this is so much more than I'd anticipated.

My first Meg Mason book, chosen for a group and found in a charity shop!

Raw. Heartbreaking. Emotional. Frustrating. But above all completely and brutally honest. #pick #sorrowandbliss

Soft pick. Can anyone explain why the author to the end uses “X” in place of the name of the mental illness? 🤔 I‘m not sure why after the diagnosis.

Martha sees all her flaws but is powerless to do anything about them. She is looking at herself in a mirror screaming at herself to get it together but her reflection just keeps fading away. Countless prescriptions have dulled the edges of her life and include the advice not to have children. Once properly diagnosed at the age of 40, she realises that to be a mother is all she has ever wanted. The revelation is heartbreaking.

I was very keen to read this having heard such good things, plus it was shortlisted for the women‘s prize. Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was easy to read with a good cast of characters. What let it down for me was the lack of written diagnosis that Martha is suffering from. That made it slightly unrelatable

This book follows the crazy life of Martha who seems to know what she wants and intentionally(and sometimes unintentionally ) destroys it and hopes things were not how they turned out. This follows her mental illness but doesn‘t make us feel too sympathetic(not in a bad way) but shows the reality from close quarters.

Navigating a mental health condition but was well written and funny

💖💖💖

Thank you so much @Caroline2 ! I‘ve seen such amazing reviews of this from so many people (and yet I really know nothing about it)!

I can‘t wait 😁. Thank you 😘

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I love, love, LOVE this book! It is deep, impactful, and brilliantly thought provoking, with flashes of humor (yes, at times made me chuckle). And as the title states, there is sorrow and and there is bliss. It follows Martha, with debilitating mental health issues, as she goes through life and focuses on how the mental health issues affect both her and those around her. You must read the whole thing to truly understand it‘s brilliance.

This book packed a real punch for me. It is one of the most authentic stories about mental illness I‘ve read, I think. I alternated between laughing and crying throughout and couldn‘t put it down. It resonated with me in so many ways, and I‘m grateful to Meg Mason for writing it.

This one is a hard one to review. On the one hand, there are so many instances of cringeworthy situations & people that it‘s like reading/listening to things well beyond anyone‘s control. And yet, isn‘t that the point? Martha tells her story, and it becomes clear quite quickly that she is an unreliable narrator. But, it is also apparent that she lives with a mental illness (the author‘s note states her illness does not have a specific IRL name)⬇️

Negronis chasing me around, book after book. (See previous post)

I almost bailed, but I like the audiobook narrator—Emilia Fox—& I told myself this is shortlisted for the Women‘s Prize so stick with it longer & then I was stung twice by a yellowjacket & so I took a Benadryl & fell asleep listening at about 4 hours in & then my phone battery died while I slept & I decided to proceed with the final 4 hours instead of going back to the 3-hour segment I‘d missed & I loved it! (Feel free to skim the middle third.)

She asked me what I did and I told her I created content so that people could consume it.

I told her the only piece I could remember exactly was a bronze fertility sculpture that was in the hallway for a while, directly inside the front door, and only because its phallus was so pronounced that, as she said at the time, when it inadvertently got turned ninety degrees it was like a fucking boom gate. Ingrid said she remembered it as well.
'I started hanging my PE bag on it.'

I posted a review of this book yesterday & then took it down, because sometimes I feel a bit anxious about having such strong negative feelings about a book that people loved…especially a book that is supposed to be about mental illness. But I HATED this book, & I didn‘t think that it was a realistic portrayal of mental illness. I‘m reposting here because I am curious whether other Litsy readers had a similar reaction.

OH MY GOD someone please get these girls out of that school immediately, they're going to be getting a boring clueless narcissist to give them advice on something that could affect their lives. Also really? Is it that easy to get jobs in England?? Incredible.

😂😂😂This is so completely untrue about Martha. She doesn't fight for anything, she doesn't bother to listen to anyone, she's selfish and condescending and patronising and utterly boring. This is all tell and not show, something female writers of the last 5 years love doing.She has literally no friends,so she's definitely not the life and soul of the party

WHAT??? Where did this even COME from?Have authors forgotten that character development is an integral part of writing?This facet of this completely banal protagonist is not developed AT AlL throughout the book,and is now suddenly dropped on the reader.Till now,she has shown no sympathy to her(bafflingly)constantly pregnant sister,never helps her with her children,shows absolutely no interest in anyone else-none of which indicates(1/2)

Slightly confused. A doctor literally gave her the right diagnosis when she was 18, only for it to be dismissed by her mother. A doctor has given her the right diagnosis again. Other doctors, who are not psychiatrists or mental health experts are now to be castigated for not diagnosing her correctly?? How did not a single editor find this completely ridiculous?

Find me a more patronising, condescending sentence that thinks it's profound. Confusing narcissism with profundity and depth is ironically enough, one of the most shallow ways to write.

Really? Swipes at In Our Time now? I've listened to more than 50 episodes and to dismiss this always thoughtful, well researched radio show just for a bit of virtue signalling, when the narrator herself absolutely never listens to anyone or cares about anyone else's opinions, is such bad, again, banal (clearly a word I'm going to over use while talking about this book)writing.

How edgy. How subversive. How completely juvenile and more fitting for a 16 year old to say to her parents than a woman who's over 30.🙄🙄

I am in complete awe of a woman who is so entitled, clueless, ignorant of history and completely un-self aware, that she can toss out an adjective like "Stasi-like" so casually, completely oblivious to the very real historical connotations.Its not cheeky Brit humour.Its just sheer banality.

What?? Why?? Literal DESPAIR from a hotel restaurant?? Seriously? What are these sentences? Is this book a joke being played on the reader? I am being driven into a state of existential despair when I contemplate the state of book publishing that sentences like this make it through editors.

One of the most historical, artistic places in the world, and this is all Meg Mason has to say about it. After page after page of railing against banal tourists. Is there something completely wrong with book critics and the literary establishment that they're willing to reward this drivel? Am I secretly a masochist that I'm willing to plough on with this drivel?

One more gibe at tourists. What have they done to Meg Mason, herself a non-Londoner from New Zealand, I wonder. Also if tourists are so completely awful for the city, I wonder why London is so actively courting them ,post covid.

Wow. No sign of the protagonist showing the slightest interest in literature or reading, but of course she must condescend to paying customers. Why not. Also is it this easy to get a visa and stay in Paris for 4 years if one is a white British person? Wow. Nice work if you can get it. Presumably Brexit will make things harder. One can only hope.

Is this book meant to be a fairytale??? Whom do things like this happen to? You're depressed and your boss gives you his flat in Paris to stay in? The more I read this book, the more shocked I am by it's utter mediocrity and unself-awareness and the rave reviews.

I‘m so very sad to learn that @ReadingEnvy has died. If you have not listened to her podcast before I want to share it again here- it‘s a GREAT podcast, and always felt like I was part of the conversation as a listener. In addition @Centique has created an event to in memorial of Jenny. Choosing from her book recommendations will be challenging- or a Re listen to her older episodes May be in order. For those close to her I am so sorry ❤️‍🩹