Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - Sorrow and Bliss

Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

133 reviews

eeviee's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is the kind of book you read to remind you of how much you love reading. The kind that you revisit from time to time and still feel gutted by. That one book you read at different stages of your life and find yourself identifying with another character you were least likely to feel any affinity with. It is a character study of a deeply flawed woman in an equally flawed relationship, and how she comes to mend herself in more ways than one.

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bookishdiya's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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tysuckz's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Honestly despite it being a relatively low rating (compared to everyone elses) this is probably one of my favourite books. It was so easy to read and so pleasant but shocking in the harsh realities of the way mental illnesses are treated.

I do think that one thing that lowered the rating for me is the idea that the mental illness is hidden, we never find out what it is and it actually isn't a real diagnosable mental illness by the authors account. I suppose the point is so any mental illness could be substituted in there, however I just wish that if it was written deliberately for that purpose then it wouldn't have discussed specifics such as the types of web pages that come up when she googled it etc. That way it could be more applicable to anything you wanted it to be about?

Anyway, I enjoyed it and it was nice to see most things resolve at the end. It is very bittersweet I appose!

I remember reading another review of someone saying they had a love hate relationship with the characters and how they wanted to fix them and cry with them or scream at them and I'm totally with it to be honest. I wanted nothing more than to knock some kindness into some of them but at the same time you can't help but feel sorrow with and for them.

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