Sorrow and Bliss
The funny, heart-breaking, bestselling novel that became a phenomenon
-
-
4,6 • 7 beoordelingen
-
-
- € 5,49
Beschrijving uitgever
THE PHENOMENAL SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND UNIVERSALLY BELOVED WORD-OF-MOUTH SENSATION
'Completely brilliant. I think every girl and woman should read it'
Gillian Anderson
'Exactly the book to read right now, when you need a laugh, but want to cry'
Observer
'A raucously funny, beautifully written, emotion-bashing book'
The Times
Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick. A gift, her mother once said, not everybody gets.
So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of forty - friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave?
Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her. Something that broke when a little bomb went off in her brain, at seventeen, and left her changed in a way that no doctor or therapist has ever been able to explain.
Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix - or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
WINNER OF THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Just read it. It's unforgettable'
India Knight, Sunday Times
'The most wonderful, heartbreakingly gorgeous novel of the year'
Elizabeth Day
'It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud'
Guardian
'I wanted to send it to everyone I know'
Ann Patchett
'One of those "read it in one sitting and tell all your friends" kind of books'
Evening Standard
'A sharply observed, darkly hilarious and merciless portrait of a thoroughly messed-up family'
Clare Chambers
'Compulsively readable, Sorrow and Bliss is one of the funniest books I've read'
i Paper
'Funny and as endearing as a good friend'
Barbara Kingsolver
'Fiercely intelligent and absolutely sublime'
Irish Independent
An instant Sunday Times bestseller and a book of the year for the Times and Sunday Times, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard, Spectator, Daily Express, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Irish Daily Mail, Metro, Critic, Sydney Morning Herald, Los Angeles Times, Stylist, Red and Good Housekeeping
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
English writer Mason excels in her heartbreaking U.S. debut, an account of a woman's self-discovery amid her struggle with mental illness. Martha Russell was raised by volatile artists and as a teenager began to be affected by debilitating bouts of depression, for which she's prescribed an antidepressant. Told by a physician that it would be disastrous to get pregnant while on her medication, Martha spends the her adulthood telling her romantic partners and trying to convince herself that she doesn't want to be a mother. Martha's mental health ("Unless I inform you otherwise, at intervals throughout my twenties and most of my thirties, I was depressed," she narrates) ends her first marriage and jeopardizes the second, to longtime family friend Patrick. After Martha is finally prescribed an effective medication, she's able to see her family relationships in new light but is it too late to repair them? Martha's anecdotes, simultaneously funny and sad, are stacked with observations that alternate between brutally cutting especially when directed at her mother and at the patient and supportive Patrick and aching, as when her oblique descriptions of her sister's growing family increasingly belie her true feelings about motherhood. Witty and stark, Martha's emotionally affecting story will delight fans of Sally Rooney.
Klantrecensies
Great!
I love how certain things remained unspoken and unnamed. A book filled with despair, love, dark humor and very recognizable behavior. I loved it!