“Normal people say, I can’t imagine feeling so bad I’d genuinely want to die. I do not try and explain that it isn’t that you want to die. It is that you know you are not supposed to be alive, feeling a tiredness that powders your bones, a tiredness with so much fear. The unnatural fact of living is something you must eventually fix.”

“Everything is broken and messed up and completely fine. That is what life is. It's only the ratios that change. usually on their own.”

“Nostalgia is the suffering cause by our unappeased earing to return' Whether or not, he said, the home we long for ever existed.”

This book’s POV being in 1st person is really important - as we can understand the instability of the perception of a mentally ill person. Her disease not being revealed allows us to connect with her in a more deeper level and to not associate her only with her disease - because we have diseases, diseases don’t have us.
In general, the majority finds it hard to be empathetic with Martha all through the book, however I did not feel that. I could understand all her sorrow and even when her actions were not that great, I could see where they were coming from. I know that also in general everyone loved Patrick - and I can see why - but I just had so much empathy for her, that he annoyed me (as he annoyed her) sometimes. The sisters’ relationship is my favourite dynamic in the book, Ingrid is incredible.

This book was full of sorrow for me, but it had such funny moments, I loved it so much. It shows that a mental illness doesn’t only affect the person herself - affects everything and everyone around her. One of my favourites of this year, I believe.