It’s written in the first person – which I know I love. It’s quite a long book – which I thought I hated. But turns out those two things were what made the end so gratifying. I have now reread the last 50 pages of the book 3 times. Meg Mason (the author) leaves so many breadcrumbs throughout which just makes it all the more emotional and meaningful when Martha comes to terms with her way of being. I should say, this all sounds very sad but the book itself is incredibly funny. I laughed out loud several times. But then again I’m easily entertained. Martha’s “problem” (I don’t know how else to label it) is never outright named by the author. I looked it up and she says it’s because she didn’t want to misrepresent any particular mental illness. And because everyone’s experience of severe mental health issues looks very different. I think that’s simply brilliant. It means you can freely relate to pieces of the main character, without it meaning anything specific for yourself as the reader, or the author. It was just such a well written book about mental health, in my opinion. And that must be very very hard to write. 

All I want is for all my friends to read this book, so I can discuss it with them. Turns out, that’s what reading a good book feels like to me: wanting to talk about it for hours. 

Her character gets into the habit of sending alphabet poems with one of her fabulous friends – as suggested by her father (a poet). I have tried, but I am no writer, and no poet, and this was quite tricky. I fail miserably towards the end of the alphabet.  I’ll admit the end goes off the rails there. It’s harder than it looks. So I had some other tries. Here they all are: