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A review by burritapal_1
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
**spoiler alert ** The protagonist has a mental illness. She also thinks that she's the only one in the world who suffers from a mental illness.
She has an aunt (Winsome is her name 🤣) who has always stood by her and her (the aunt's) sister's family, no matter how badly she has been treated. She also married money.
Every Christmas she invites them to her beautiful home, and produces a lovely Christmas for an undeserving bunch of relatives.
"Months earlier, Margaret Thatcher had moved into a townhouse on the other side of the square. Winsome worked it naturally and unnaturally into every conversation and on Christmas day, it was mentioned twice at breakfast and again as we were getting ready to walk to the church at the top of the square, towards a corner that made it nearer my uncle and aunt's house than the prime Minister's.
What people notice, then eventually stop noticing about my aunt, is that whenever she is addressing a topic of importance, she speaks with her chin lifted and her eyes closed. At her crux, they spring open and bulge enormously as if she has been shocked awake. Ending, she sucks air into flared nostrils and holds it for a period that becomes worrying, before slowly expelling it. In the instance of Margaret Thatcher, my aunt always opened her eyes at the point of saying our lady prime minister has chosen 'the less good side.' It infuriated my mother, who wondered aloud on the way to church why it might be that, instead of walking straight there, winsome was leading us around three sides of the square."
I had problems caring about this character, the protagonist, who, though she suffered greatly from her mental illness (rolling eyeballs), nevertheless was rewarded with a husband who adored her and took very good care of her. That wasn't good enough for her, oh no! She had to drive him away from her. I just couldn't handle this. I had a husband who was an abuser. A machista. Loads of fun, let me tell you, if you like getting beaten and disrespected and treated like your family is a battleground. So throughout the whole book I was just like "why don't you shut up and just enjoy the way he's treating you.?"
When she's 40 years old, her husband throws a party for her. She's in such a bad mood, because she just doesn't want to be there, and she ruins the whole thing. She is lamenting to her sister, who has always been there for her, about what a crappy life she has. Her sister says:
" 'It doesn't have to be miserable though. Like, don't automatically assume it has to be --'
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? I don't know how to want something that isn't a baby. I can't just think of something else and decide to want that 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 an Etsy business. Everything goes away eventually, and women are always the last ones standing so we just make up something else to want.' "
True words, ingrid.
This would have been three stars, but I gave it the extra star because the author has a very funny voice for her characters. I imagine it's what the author's personality is like.
She has an aunt (Winsome is her name 🤣) who has always stood by her and her (the aunt's) sister's family, no matter how badly she has been treated. She also married money.
Every Christmas she invites them to her beautiful home, and produces a lovely Christmas for an undeserving bunch of relatives.
"Months earlier, Margaret Thatcher had moved into a townhouse on the other side of the square. Winsome worked it naturally and unnaturally into every conversation and on Christmas day, it was mentioned twice at breakfast and again as we were getting ready to walk to the church at the top of the square, towards a corner that made it nearer my uncle and aunt's house than the prime Minister's.
What people notice, then eventually stop noticing about my aunt, is that whenever she is addressing a topic of importance, she speaks with her chin lifted and her eyes closed. At her crux, they spring open and bulge enormously as if she has been shocked awake. Ending, she sucks air into flared nostrils and holds it for a period that becomes worrying, before slowly expelling it. In the instance of Margaret Thatcher, my aunt always opened her eyes at the point of saying our lady prime minister has chosen 'the less good side.' It infuriated my mother, who wondered aloud on the way to church why it might be that, instead of walking straight there, winsome was leading us around three sides of the square."
I had problems caring about this character, the protagonist, who, though she suffered greatly from her mental illness (rolling eyeballs), nevertheless was rewarded with a husband who adored her and took very good care of her. That wasn't good enough for her, oh no! She had to drive him away from her. I just couldn't handle this. I had a husband who was an abuser. A machista. Loads of fun, let me tell you, if you like getting beaten and disrespected and treated like your family is a battleground. So throughout the whole book I was just like "why don't you shut up and just enjoy the way he's treating you.?"
When she's 40 years old, her husband throws a party for her. She's in such a bad mood, because she just doesn't want to be there, and she ruins the whole thing. She is lamenting to her sister, who has always been there for her, about what a crappy life she has. Her sister says:
" 'It doesn't have to be miserable though. Like, don't automatically assume it has to be --'
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? I don't know how to want something that isn't a baby. I can't just think of something else and decide to want that 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 an Etsy business. Everything goes away eventually, and women are always the last ones standing so we just make up something else to want.' "
True words, ingrid.
This would have been three stars, but I gave it the extra star because the author has a very funny voice for her characters. I imagine it's what the author's personality is like.