Are You Happy Now: 'One of the best novels of 2023' Sara Collins

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What a difficult book to categorize, rate, and review! Nothing feels straightforward with this read, including the plot, the character dynamics, and the characters themselves. I finished the read feeling thoroughly bewildered. I found Andrew and Fin’s relationship to be more interesting. Although their dynamic is in some ways more straightforward (but not entirely), I found myself wanting to delve more into their interactions than any others. One thing that I especially like about this novel is the characters never fall into a stereotype; the plot, too, takes detours just when you think it might take the predictable road. As John Lennon said, Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. And it’s the other things that happen which may end up making you happy, not what you thought (or planned).

Llegué a esta novela porque la anterior novela de Jameson, ‘Los últimos’, me pareció una interesante propuesta dentro del trillado género detectivesco, aunque la ejecución fuera finalmente fallida. Desgraciadamente, leyendo esta nueva obra de la autora me encuentro con una situación similar.Emory couldn’t imagine what it felt like to inhabit space you truly owned. Cities were hostile to anyone who couldn’t count on the split rent and utilities of partnership. Being one person was more expensive than she had been taught to anticipate.” A regretful mate who is determined to win her over? A still bitchy sister? And how about the pathetic Alpha who has a secret of his own?

He didn’t want to die, he just wanted to stop, to cease, sit down. Maybe just sleep, for a year or maybe forever.” John Lincoln is comparing Chicago to New York, the place he sees as his future. "He wants to attach himself to a great publishing house, edit profound writers, maybe even write a book or two himself. Bask in the pride of his parents. Wave those credentials in front of his rivals. Be somebody."

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I found that each chapter in this book was very well written, and brought it’s point home in a manner that the reader could accept, and that allowed them to take a look at themselves in a non-judgmental manner. This book acts as a mirror to who we are at the soul level. As the characters contend with old and new hurts, hidden feelings, loneliness and longing, psychogenic catatonia continues to threaten their horizon. Jameson seamlessly switches points of view, often adopting a nonlinear narrative and or using foreshadowing to build and maintain tension. Her prose brought to mind Hanya Yanagihara, Donna Tartt, and Scott Spencer. Jameson’s prose effortlessly moves between registers: from presenting us with clear-cut and incisive descriptions (of the character’s feelings, thoughts, actions, and surroundings), to using her language to evoke with striking intimacy and poignancy the mood and nuances of a certain moment/scene. Jameson’s style maintains a balance between crisp yet opaque, at times eliciting in dazzling detail the state of mind of a character, at times allowing room for the ambiguous nature of her character’s fears and desires to shine. Her dialogues rang true to life, not only in their rhythms but in how they often revolved around or hinted at unspoken feelings. The setting, mostly ‘post’-covid NY, is brought to life. Jameson captures just how easy it is to feel lost and alone in such a city, while also incorporating discussions on current politics and on America’s healthcare service.

Yun, Emory, Fin and Andrew attend the wedding; their lives entwine as the “psychogenic death experience” takes hold of society and the story follows them along a sinister end of the world trajectory. The novel doesn’t just ask how we can exist in a doomed world but how we can love a damaged person, interrogating their intense, tangled relationships. Yes!" I squealed. "I was hoping this would happen! I mean I thought about it happening when I first met Logan and he basically adopted me as his daughter. I just thought that you two would make such a good couple. But then I realized that my sperm donator still stood in the way and then just pushed the thought away. But then he was out of the picture and I thought about the pair of you again, but then I also thought Logan was dead but -" Logan covered my rambling mouth so I'd shut up. I gave him a sheepish smile, well I tried with his hand still covering my mouth. And she thought, Oh shit, I really like him. Oh shit, because it was never a good time to realize you really liked someone. Realizing you really liked someone meant knowing on some level it was going to hurt. Fin is probably the character I like the most, but damn, this book made me deal with some flawed (and in some cases unlikeable) characters. Which I don’t mind, but there was just not enough about Yun to let me like him or feel very sorry for him. And I feel like that should have been the case? Andrew waited at the bottom of the steps, wondering whether friendships burned out in the same way epidemics, hysterias and protestors do, then went up.En ‘Are you happy now’ seguimos la historia de cuatro personajes principales (junto a un buen puñado de secundarios) que se enfrentan a un mundo donde se origina una pandemia. Parece la historia típica que podría surgir de estos últimos años. La pandemia consiste en personas que de un momento para otro se sientan y no hacen nada hasta que pasadas un par de semanas mueren.

I wanted you to be happy. I didn’t care what you were doing. It just got too much, watching you do the same thing over and over, and I realized you were never going to stop trying to become this imaginary version of yourself where you’re happy because you’re rich or signed to a big label or something huge like that. Even when things did go well, you were never happy because it wasn’t like this ultimate fantasy you already made up in your head. […] It was really hard to be around, to be with someone who was just never happy. I am done. Is it wrong that when he was on the plane, I was really hoping that the story was going to be that he finally got what he wanted all his life and then the plane crashed! Or that when he was trying to 'break in' to Amy's apartment, that someone would see him and call the police or shoot him?! Does he regret it? Does he change is man-whore ways? Or does he continue on with Briella? How is Jake, Cassidy's brother, handling her departure? How about her mom and cheating father? How is she?it's good! i've been meaning to read this for so long and i was not disappointed, even if it was not what i had expected at all. As far as she could tell, what Yun wanted from his parents was impossible. He wanted them to have made him happy.