I loved her relationship with her sister – and even her relationship with her husband to a point. I loved the way Martha’s mental health issues were discussed and how raw some of that is. The things about it that were good were brilliant. So wrapping up my feelings on this book is a bit complicated. It’s a tricky one, because I do understand her reasoning, and I’m not sure what she could have done instead – but it really didn’t work for me. But holy fuck was it annoying to read!!!!! Every time I came across another _ it took me right out of the story and distracted me so much that it started to really impact my enjoyment of the book.

I get all of that, and logically it makes complete sense. I read an interview in which she said that she did that because the symptoms Martha experiences aren’t associated with just one mental illness, and that she didn’t want to seem like she was speaking for a group of people with one mental illness. She chooses to do this _ rather than naming the mental illness Martha is eventually diagnosed with. There’s also a narrative choice made by the author that bugged the shit out of me. I still wanted to find out what was going to happen, but it didn’t have that same pull that the earlier pages did. I did find that the second half of the book was slower for me.

I found that realistic, especially given her particular challenges. I liked that the characters all have both negative and positive attributes, and that her relationships with them change throughout the book. Mason spares no details in delving into Martha’s mental illness, and we see the nitty gritty of how it has affected her, what it has done to her relationships, and how hard she has to struggle just to be. That said though, this book is definitely dark. I didn’t feel bogged down in it, and that’s why.

The humour breaks up the dark stuff and creates a sense of push and pull, of balance. I felt like this was what I wanted from Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, but didn’t quite get. Martha and her sister have a great banter that continues right through, and provides some important comic relief. As mentioned above, it’s full of funny lines, even in the midst of difficult events.

When we first meet her, her husband has just left her, and the book then takes us into the past and draws us through her life and their history to show us how we got here. She suffers from mental health issues, and has a life that leaves her generally feeling unsatisfied and blank. This is the story of Martha Friel, who is flailing. That’s the first impression I had of the book, and the tone instantly had me hooked. For a book about serious things, this book sure was funny.

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