A review by meemawreads
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

emotional funny hopeful
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I’ve read many books that allowed me to watch a protagonist find themselves but it’s rarely been this honest or messy. This isn’t a story for the faint of heart: the main character Martha is mentally ill, her family is dysfunctional, her marriage is unhappy, and there is reference to suicidal ideation. I wouldn’t call the book “funny”, but I related to the family and their dialogue in a way that made me laugh a few times. Instead, I would say it was “smart and just east of devastating.” 
General spoilers ahead. 
I have a big hangup with the book, and that is the author’s stylistic choice to use “___” in place of what you find out at the end is a fictional, nonspecific mental illness the protagonist is diagnosed with. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, but this diagnosis is the inciting incident behind Martha confronting her mother about her knowledge of this shared illness, resenting her doctor husband for not noticing it first, realizing she could have and indeed wanted to be a mother. The diagnosis explains her past and informs her future. It took me out of the story to wonder what this mystery illness was and WHY the author kept it from us, and the choice didn’t pay off in a way that made up for how distracting it was.
I also felt the end stopped short of the devastation it could have wrought, which always disappoints me. I was gonna knock a whole tater off for how badly “___” bothered me, but this quote made me add a half-tater back: “I said, “I’m not. I want it not to be miserable. I just don’t know what non-miserable options exist if you don’t like animals or helping people. If you’ve wanted the things women are supposed to want, babies, husband, friends, house -“
“Successful Etsy business.”
“Successful Etsy business, fulfillment, whatever, and you didn’t get them, what are you supposed to want instead?” 
Ingrid said yes you can. “Even the women who get those things lose them again. Husbands die and children grow up and marry someone you hate and use the law degree you bought them to start and Etsy business. Everything goes away eventually, and women are always the last ones standing so we just make up something else to want.””
🥔🥔🥔🥔🍠/🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔
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