
Sorrow and Bliss
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Emilia Fox
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By:
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Meg Mason
"Brilliantly faceted and extremely funny. . . . While I was reading it, I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realized that I wanted to send it to everyone I know." — Ann Patchett
“Improbably charming...will have you chortling and reading lines aloud.” — PEOPLE
The internationally bestselling, compulsively readable novel—spiky, sharp, intriguingly dark, and tender—that combines the psychological insight of Sally Rooney with the sharp humor of Nina Stibbe and the emotional resonance of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.
Martha Friel just turned forty. Once, she worked at Vogue and planned to write a novel. Now, she creates internet content. She used to live in a pied-à-terre in Paris. Now she lives in a gated community in Oxford, the only person she knows without a PhD, a baby or both, in a house she hates but cannot bear to leave. But she must leave, now that her husband Patrick—the kind who cooks, throws her birthday parties, who loves her and has only ever wanted her to be happy—has just moved out.
Because there’s something wrong with Martha, and has been for a long time. When she was seventeen, a little bomb went off in her brain and she was never the same. But countless doctors, endless therapy, every kind of drug later, she still doesn’t know what’s wrong, why she spends days unable to get out of bed or alienates both strangers and her loved ones with casually cruel remarks.
And she has nowhere to go except her childhood home: a bohemian (dilapidated) townhouse in a romantic (rundown) part of London—to live with her mother, a minorly important sculptor (and major drinker) and her father, a famous poet (though unpublished) and try to survive without the devoted, potty-mouthed sister who made all the chaos bearable back then, and is now too busy or too fed up to deal with her.
But maybe, by starting over, Martha will get to write a better ending for herself—and she’ll find out that she’s not quite finished after all.
©2021 Meg Mason (P)2021 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...




















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Lovely story
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so much more than a book "about mental illness"
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I laughed, I cried, I couldn’t stop listening
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The performance was perfect.
A difficult story, written just beautifully
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I think what I most liked about the book were the specific, well-written disturbing thought process(es) that plagued the lead character and the impact of her actions on others (as a result of her thoughts).
I know the book describes the mental health disorder as “z” but I think it is clear that there were layers of pathology that cannot be attributed to one diagnosis.
The book is disturbing but it offers some insight into living with years of mental illness that is not treated.
Unique
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Heartbreaking, funny, beautifully written.
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stay with it!
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wow
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It is far more depressing than I had expected.
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At first I thought depressing & boring but then...
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