Ah I’m so disappointed that not everyone loved sorrow and bliss as much as I did! I don’t recommend it widely though. I was listening to Aisling Bea on the Bookshelfie podcast yesterday and she put it in her top five books and spoke of how important it was not to classify the mental health problem because it “others” the character then. She followed the same tact in writing this way up. We are too quick to put people in boxes and think their experience is exclusive to that box and write it off accordingly. By not classifying, it makes it more universal and relatable maybe.
I have chronic mental health problems and I could relate to every word written. So many of her thoughts and reasonings and experiences could have been my own, it was almost eerie. The selfishness and self obsession and insecurity and paranoia, it ain’t pretty but it’s real.
But my experience isn’t everyone’s. I understand it may be marmite in its appeal! Some will just find her insufferable. Others will find hope and feel less alone.
In other news, I’m halfway through Crying in H Mart and it might break me. I’m in a low ebb at the moment already and worried about my own mother’s mortality, why I thought reading this book now was a good idea I’ll never know. Is anyone else utterly masochistic in their reading?!
I actually find both of these reviews valid and whilst opposing would potentially agree with both.
I dont think Martha had to be likeable, often in real life people are not. So I dont massively have a gripe with the way the character was written or anything.
I cant really put my finger on what it was that I didnt like about Sorrow & Bliss. I suffer poor mental health and would have long periods of depression and anxiety throughout my life so far. I think perhaps the setting is what was off for me. Perhaps the middle class nature of the story. For the majority of people they have to drag themselves along every day and cannot wallow because we just have to get on even if it kills us every day.
I did at some points wonder if the big reveal was going to be a personality disorder but it wasnt that.
). People seemed to get stuck on the protagonist being so unlikeable, but I know that when I'm very unwell I am completely unlikeable - as you say: not pretty but very real. 
