by Meg Mason
First published 2021
Martha Friel has always heard the same things about herself. She's clever. She's beautiful. She's a talented writer. Her husband Patrick has loved her faithfully throughout their adult years together. Her mother called this devotion a gift that not everyone receives. Yet at nearly 40, Martha finds her world crumbling around her. She has no real friends, barely any work, and sadness follows her constantly. Patrick has decided to leave. Martha wonders if she's simply too sensitive for this world, if living feels harder for her than for most people. Or perhaps something deeper is wrong with her, something that began when she was 17 and experienced what she thinks of as a little bomb exploding in her brain. That moment changed her in ways no doctor or therapist has managed to explain or fix. Now Martha must move back in with her eccentric, dysfunctional parents in her childhood home. This return gives her one final opportunity to discover whether her broken life can be repaired, or if starting fresh might allow her to create a different, better story for herself.
Genres: literary-fiction, mental-illness, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Martha Friel
Period: Nearly 40
9 pages · MP3 CD · HarperCollins
Content warnings: depression, mental-illness