Sorrow and Bliss: A Novel Kindle Edition

Not as clever as some reviewers claimed. On the bright side: witty repartee. Fun and breezy until about 2/3 of the way through when the main character becomes so hideous and self-centered that you want to throw the book across the room. Lame ending.

I would read anything recommended by Ann Patchett.But this was beyond my expectations.Funny,sad,sweet,just all the right notes about mental illness

I started crying when I read the synopsis of the book and then bought it. It was too close home, very realistic and profound telling a life of a person with some mental disorder. I cried a lot during the reading and the book made me revisit my own life and reevaluate. Eventually it even made me hope.. this is a most amazing book. Thank you

Why I thought I would like this book, I don’t remember. I think I thought it would be funnier than it is. I don’t often give up on a book without finishing it but this one is the exception. If I’d finished I would have probably OD’d. I worry that it was my fault that I didn’t get the “humor” (if there was any) but it wasn’t worth trying to figure it out.

I did not want this book to end. The characters are so real, I could not bear the thought of not always knowing them.

I thought this book was supposed to be funny. The credits were misleading. Well written and I had to finish it hoping for a happier outcome, but it just left me feeling empty.

Sorrow and Bliss is sometimes a hard read, but one that spoke to me.Martha grew up in an unconventional home. Her mother is a minor sculptor, her father a failed poet, and she and her sister Ingrid have attended their parties since they were young. Martha is married to Patrick, who was the friend of her cousin, so she has known him since she was in high school. But Martha also has some major mental health issues that make her deeply depressed at times, easy to fly off the handle, and hard to live with. Patrick eventually leaves her on her 40th birthday because he can't stay any longer. She moves back in with her parents, and tries to figure out where her life is going and where it went wrong.The book jumps forward and backward in time to fill in the stories of Martha, Ingrid, their parents, their aunt, uncle and cousins, and Patrick. Martha's mental illness is always part of the story, and it is an uncompromising view of what depression and anxiety and other mental disorders can do to a life, even if you're seeking treatment and taking medication. Mental disorders affect around 1 in 5 adults in the U.S., so many people either have one or know someone who does.I would label this as a hard read, because it is sometimes hard to find compassion and understanding when Martha intentionally self-destructs. But there also are moments when you see her humanity and want to give her a big hug and tell her it will be alright. The other characters are unflinchingly real, and you'll want them all to have their happy endings.

Sorrow and Bliss is a well-written novel that provides a realistic and insightful portrait of living with mental illness. The storyline is interesting but the pacing is slow. Martha is a frustrating woman and her self-absorption and casual cruelty to her loved ones is difficult to watch. Ingrid is a wonderful person with a marvelous sense of humor. Patrick is likable but a bit underdeveloped until very near the story’s end. Both Martha and her mother undergo significant growth which is quite uplifting. Meg Mason brings the novel to a slightly unsatisfactory but true to life conclusion.I received a complimentary copy for review.

Quite tedious for much of the book, it's like being an unwitting psychiatrist, hour after hour of outpouring of angst that we all have to deal with in our lives. No fun and not funny at all which was disappointing.

An afterword states that this is not based on actual mental illness knowledge. Hence she receives a diagnosis of __ __. Nonsense. Whining self centered main character with a passive husband that would not exist. 100 pages too long.

As the note at the end of the book states; the medical symptoms described in this book are not consistent with a genuine mental illness and the portrayal of the treatment is wholly fictional. In other words, the author wanted to write a book about something she knew nothing about and wasn't bothered with doing any research on the subject. It is a false, inaccurate portrayal of psychiatric illness. To just make this kind of stuff up is actually deeply offensive to people who do suffer from a "genuine" mental illness. There are many existing books on this topic - deeply moving, beautifully written accounts of psychiatric illness and treatment - that are authentic and sometimes semi-autobiographical (some of which clearly provided the inspiration for this book), so why bother to write a book about a made up illness when you clearly have no clue what you're talking about? This book made me upset and angry. If you have any experience with psychiatric illness you will recognise immediately that the author has pulled all of this out of her ar$e and if you haven't, what you are getting is a load of nonsense that has no basis in reality. Either way, I don't recommend it.

I know I am in a minority but this wasn't for me. The protagonist, Martha, has some kind of mental illness (which annoyingly is never named even when it is finally diagnosed - because, as the author admits, she made it up) and this gives her licence to be utterly obnoxious and self-centred particularly to the childhood friend who is foolish enough to marry her when her first ill-conceived marriage fails. The story is pretty thin and although there are a few funny lines by the end, I was so sick of Martha's whinging that it was a pleasure to finish.

Having guffawed at the sculptor line referencing 'Your Song' by Elton John and gotten a little glassy-eyed thinking about Patrick's mum starting off an apple for him, I had great hopes for this book. Once I got to the bit where Martha gets her diagnosis of '- -' it lost me. I deduced the diagnosis was schizophrenia due to the familial tendency and horror of the suggestion Martha had this. So why not say it? It is a much misunderstood condition that really does need the stigma knocking out of it. I felt there was an opportunity to do this that wasn't taken. I also felt the humour was so significantly lacking in the latter part of the book that it became a chore to continue to read it. Meg Mason is clearly a talented writer, but I feel this missed the mark.