Book Review: Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
đ Genre | Lit Fic, Contemporary, Adult |
đ Number of Pages | 352 pages |
đȘŽ Average Goodreads Rating | 4.11 â |
đ» My Rating | 5 â |
What’s Sorrow and Bliss About?
Sorrow and Bliss follows Martha, a woman in her 40s suffering from an unnamed mental illness, as she grapples with her failing marriage and family relationships. The story is non-linear, so youâll see Martha as a teenager, as a young woman, and all the events that led to her current situation, as well as what happens next.Â
Itâs really hard to describe this book in a way that will make people want to read it â on the surface, it sounds really boring. But itâs the exact opposite of that. Sorrow and Bliss is a quiet, funny, exquisite novel that tackles family, love, youth, fertility, depression, and so much more. Itâs almost a family saga with Martha at the center of it.
Itâs also quite sad. Martha has struggled with her mental illness for most of her life, and it has affected each of her relationships. Please mind the triggers before you read this book. Marthaâs experiences are described viscerally, so youâll be right in the depths of her mental state with her.
But beyond that, Martha is funny, often relatable, and messy. She tends to be cruel as self-sabotage, and often comes off as annoying and listless. Yet, you canât help but love her, or at least care what happens with her.Â
The way Martha tells you about her life, in these darkly funny, acerbic anecdotes that usually end with a line of two that hint at a larger tragedy of her life â just remembering it is giving me goosebumps. Most of the novel is told in this way; an event here and there that doesnât seem all that important, but that gives you perfect clarity of either Martha and her condition or the people in her life.Â
What also stuck with me is the way this author doesnât give too much time or importance to things that would further label Martha. She gets sexually assaulted, but this is not given too much space; her assailant certainly isnât. The focus is on her â the aftermath, her getting worse, her getting better. Her mental illness is not named at all, and the author masterfully evades the medicalisation of Marthaâs condition which she has suffered throughout her life.
She allows Martha the clarity of knowing, of better understanding herself, but she doesnât let us think differently of her.Â
The side characters in this novel are just as well-written as Martha herself is. Her mother, for example, who has been an embarrassment and a sort of antagonist for most of her life, becomes Marthaâs biggest supporter by the end. Her aunt Winsome, who youâll see mostly as a pompous and annoying rich lady at the beginning, helps her in more ways that you can imagine.
Each of these characters have their own arcs, which just makes the world of Sorrow and Bliss feel populated and alive with vibrant people.Â
One of my favorites is Patrick, of course. Patrick is Marthaâs husband, but heâs also the person who has been a part of her extended family for years. At thirteen, his neglectful father forgot to buy him a plane ticket home, so one of Marthaâs cousins brings him home. This becomes a tradition, and Patrick a staple in her life.Â
As time progresses, he turns into more â in the softest, most gentle way possible. He himself is a gentle, soft man, shy and self-effacing, often idolizing Martha and doing his best to make her happy.
Iâd say his character arc is the quietest one â he goes from idolizing Martha to seeing her as human as she is, and leaving her for her own (and his own) good once she starts hurting him. And once they find their way back to each other (not fully, not completely, but tentatively), heâs stronger for it, more determined to do it right this time.
Of course, I wouldnât say that the book is without its flaws. Martha has a mental illness, yes, but sheâs also very hard to like even without it. She often believes she is better, smarter, more beautiful than the people around her. She treats Patrick horribly. Sheâs arrogant and condescending. Even her dark states get a bit too much by the end, especially when you can see how destructive they are.Â
Youâll be frustrated with her a lot â I know I was.
But overall, Sorrow and Bliss is, at least for me, the best book of 2023. I tore through it in one sitting and loved every bit of it. Iâm planning a reread at some point this year too. So, obviously, I highly recommend it. You can find it in my go-to recs, and some more recommendations as well.Â
A cool bit of news is that itâs been picked up for a screen adaptation by New Regency. There are no updates on the development, but the CEO of New Regency seemed excited about the project. Iâm looking forward to seeing it, whenever it comes out.
Meg Mason is also working on a new novel at the moment, according to this quote she gave to The Guardian (read the full interview here):Â
There is now another novel in the works, perhaps a quarter of the way through: âBut what Iâm doing is Iâm sort of checking every day that I should still be going on with it. And Iâm not doing the same thing I did before, which is just to press on. So what Iâve learned out of Sorrow and Bliss, even if itâs difficult, it shouldnât be that difficult. And if youâre not finding it interesting, no one else is going to find it interesting.â Assuming that she doesnât have to junk it all, how does she think things will pan out? She laughs. âItâs so tricky to work out how to simulate that sense of privacy that I had before, which is what made the novel basically successful in the end. Itâs much harder this time to convince myself no oneâs going to see it, because I think they might.â