Book Review: Happy Happy Happy

Happy Happy Happy is about a young woman named Charlie, who left her village in order to escape from the tragic loss of her mother and unspoken emotions between her and her father. Charlie decided to run away from her past and live a new life in London determined to forget about everything. She had a new life, had a stable job, she found herself a fiance telling herself that she had indeed found her happiness… until her father died and she needed to go back to their village and face her past again. She was now finding herself asking whether she was indeed truly happy.

I have never had such a love and hate relationship with a book, but this book.. argh! I honestly don’t know how to feel about this one. This book is so sad, sad, sad and it was such a drag to be reading Charlie’s thoughts. Charlie is such a sad girl and doesn’t know what she really wants in her life. She usually just follows where life takes her and does not think about what really matters to her and would assume that she is happy just because she thinks it’s a good thing.

Nicola made sure readers see Charlie’s struggle to make peace with her dad and past. At first, I could never understand why some people are ungrateful to their parents. Charlie is a hateful female who disregards everything around her, not to mention how she treats her fiancé.

She just loves to push everyone away.

She hasn’t gotten over her mom’s death, and she expects her dad to do the same. She actually has the balls to feel infuriated when she learned he found someone new when she just ignores him whenever he tries to reach out to her. I almost DNF this book because I hated how she treated her Dad until the very end, and how she closed herself to the people in her village.

This was until Pauline came, her supposed-to-be stepmom was so awesome that I knew she would be a key to Charlie’s acceptance of whatever she was battling with. Alongside Lowenna, I loved how they build friendships over time.

As I read further, Nicola made Charlie so unlikable in the beginning and slowly pave the way for her character’s growth and transition. I love how she drops snippets of Charlie’s past in every chapter making you understand why she is the way she is. I understood that she was never ungrateful, she did not disregard people, when was just so…sad, sad, sad.

Understanding her back story, I am glad I didn’t give up on this book. I’ve learned that it’s easy to judge people especially if you’re only seeing what they want you to see. This book has reminded me that every one of us has different struggles in life, and how you see life even after the darkness is important.

Always know that you are not alone, and there will always be people ready to support you along the way… just find the right one and know what it really feels like to be happy.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Amazon Publishing UK, Lake Union Publishing for giving me ARC of Happy Happy Happy.