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Sorrow and Bliss

The funny, heart-breaking, bestselling novel that became a phenomenon

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 SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

'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.

THE PHENOMENAL SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

'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 was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realised that 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 Contemporary Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Romantic Comedy Small Town & Rural Human Brain

Critic Reviews

Completely brilliant, I loved it. I think every girl and woman should read it (Gillian Anderson)
I loved this book. Some novels ask you to work for it, others just say, "Kick off your shoes, come in, let me take you somewhere." [This is] the latter kind. Funny and as endearing as a good friend (Barbara Kingsolver, on Instagram)
This richly spiced novel is a pleasure from the first page to the last... Its beautifully understated, airy style conceals the fiercest intelligence. I loved it so much that I stalked the author on social media - a first. Just read it. It's unforgettable. (India Knight)
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... Mason pulls off something extraordinary in this huge-hearted novel, alchemising an unbearable anguish into something tender and hilarious and redemptive and wise, without ever undermining its gravity or diminishing its pain. (Clare Clark)
Inspired storytelling... a devastating and sharply funny love story... it is Martha's voice itself - her woeful deadpan narration always teetering between the comic, the tragic and the downright unlikable - that makes this novel sing. (Julie Myerson)
Probably the best book you'll read this year... Brilliant, bleak, hilarious: the book of the summer. (Natasha Poliszczuk)
Sorrow and Bliss, Meg Mason's first novel to be published in the UK, is as wonderful as everyone says it is. Blunt, tender, hilarious, and so very good on the trickiness of families, it is that rare perfect balance of fun (commercial) and difficult (literary), and exactly the book to read right now, when you need a laugh, but want to cry. (Eva Wiseman)
Summer's must-read novel... We can't recommend Sorrow And Bliss highly enough. (Francesca Brown)
A Fleabag-esque novel being raved about by Gillian Anderson and Ann Patchett... Expect this one to light up the WhatsApp chats. (Louisa McGillicuddy)
You know that book that only comes along every so often, that seems to unite everyone who has read it in a sort of delirious fervour? Sorrow and Bliss is that book... It's utterly compelling and darkly funny: the book you have to read this summer. (Jessie Thompson)
Meg Mason has achieved something remarkable - Sorrow and Bliss is a raucously funny, beautifully written, emotionbashing book about love, family and life's curveballs that leaves you, satisfyingly, with what feels like wisdom forged in fire. (Siobhan Murphy)
This is a story of mental illness reflected through the prism of an uproarious, big-hearted family comedy. It is fiercely intelligent and absolutely sublime. (Anne Cunningham)
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