Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - Sorrow and Bliss

Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

88 reviews

writtenontheflyleaves's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Sorrow & Bliss by Meg Mason 💊
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

💊 The plot: When Martha was a teenager, a bomb went off in her brain and she hasn't felt the same since. No one knows exactly what is wrong with her, but her husband Patrick says the main thing is just that she keeps going. When she finally gets an answer, it might be too late for her to have the only thing she's ever truly wanted.

This was a purchase motivated by my enduring love for @mostardentlyalice and my deep trust in her recommendations. It did not remotely disappoint. I laughed, I cried - frequently at the same time or on the same pages - and knew long before finishing it would be one of my favourite reads of this year.

Family is at the core of this novel and, for me, it's the truest depiction I've ever read of the fallout that severe mental illness can have, not just on the life of the person experiencing it, but on the lives of the people that love them.

Through Martha's journey of intense isolation, Mason interrogates the idea of mental illness as being something you go through alone, and explores with more nuance than I thought possible, really, what compassion looks like in the marathon journey of caring for each other over a lifetime. The moments of silent acceptance, the moments of challenge. How cruel deep depression can sometimes make you; how this doesn't make you any less worthy of humanity. How love is both a choice and not a choice at all. That you can hold the contradictions in both hands at once and they do not have to invalidate each other.

💊 Read it if you love Fleabag, soft fictional fathers, strong sisterly bonds, witty narrators who feel sharply real, or love stories that aren't capital-R romances. Also if you or someone you love has struggled with mental health issues this has the potential to be a deeply validating read.

🚫 Check trigger warnings before reading but especially avoid if you're in a sensitive place around depictions of depression and suicide.

Content Warnings

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.

Content Warnings