The instant Sunday Times top five bestseller: the book you have to read this summer 'Just read it. It's unforgettable' India Knight, The Sunday Times 'It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud... Extraordinary' Clare Clark, Guardian 'Summer's must-read novel' Stylist 'A raucously funny, beautifully written, emotion-bashing book' The Times 'The book you have to read this summer' Evening Standard 'I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realised that I wanted to send it to everyone I know' Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House 'A masterclass on family, damage and the bonds of love' Jessie Burton, author of The Confession 'Patrick Melrose meets Fleabag. Brilliant' Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick. A gift, her mother once said, not everybody gets. So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of 40 - friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave? Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her. Something that broke when a little bomb went off in her brain, at 17, and left her changed in a way that no doctor or therapist has ever been able to explain. Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix - or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself. THE BOOK OF THE SUMMER One of the Guardian's '50 hottest new books everyone should read this summer' One of the Irish Independent's '50 hottest summer reads' 'Witty and affecting' David Nicholls, Guardian's summer reading 'If there were any prospect of stuffing a suitcase with books this summer for hours reading beside a pool somewhere, I'd advise you to make room for this' Sara Collins, Guardian's summer reading