This book was such a breath of fresh air for me! All of the books I have read lately have been fantastic, but they seemed to take me forever to read. Happyish was a fun, yet difficult, adventure with the main character, Alex. I flew through this one! I honestly thought I was reading a memoir until I saw a post that pointed out that it wasn’t!

Escudero brings us a story of figuring out how to live and love again after what seems like impossible life-altering events. Alex goes on the adventure of her life and discovers how strong she is and how much she has missed out on by settling.

I loved how the ending wasn’t necessarily just a happy one. Everything about this story is completely realistic and brings forth all kinds of emotions. Be ready to laugh and cry while you enjoy this delightful novel!

Thanks to Let’s Talk Books Book Tours, Amazon Publishing, NetGalley, Jeanette Escudero/Sidney Halston for this gifted review copy, and I am leaving this review voluntarily!

Alex finally thinks her life is getting back on track after her husband, and childhood sweetheart, up and left her with only a note one year ago. She's ready to celebrate after she gets some treatment options for the migraines she has been suffering. When she walks away with a brain tumor diagnosis her life is turned upside down. Alex is in denial and can't accept the diagnosis. She can't stop picturing her sisters battle with leukemia and the trauma the loss of her sister caused to her moms. After her big pitch at work flops she decides she needs to fulfill some old promises to her sister and finally take time to travel and experience life before she goes in for surgery.

Throughout her travels she learns about herself. She has time to reflect about her sister and her ex-husband. She comes to realize how important and amazing her support system is in her life. Alex goes through a lot of personal growth throughout the book. She is also a character I could relate to, not in the past or the diagnosis, but in her "I'm fine" attitude, in wanting to do it myself and not be a burden on others.

While the book at times had some lulls and some repetition I think in the end it all came together into a great story. Sometimes we have to get to the stories conclusion to fully appreciate everything that was important along the way.

Alex is finally happy(ish) in her life. She’s one year post divorce. She’s at a good place in her career, she’s put an offer in on her own place now that she’s got her finances in order after the divorce and she’s got a great group of friends. Other than some migraines that bother her occasionally, things aren’t too bad so when her PCP sends her to a neurologist for a consult, Alex doesn’t think much of it. After all, they’re just headaches. But those headaches turn out to be a brain tumor that requires surgery that has some very serious possible complications, Alex decides that she needs to take a break from everything and go on a once in a lifetime adventure in case she isn’t able to after the surgery. While on the trip, she meets some fun new friends who bring new perspective to her situation as well as her job and she meets a hunky mountain man who wants into her carefully guarded world. Will she let him in?
After the surgery was when the real character development came for me. She was left with some unexpected complications and it really put a spin on her whole personality and it showed how true her friends really were. Alex has a lot of repressed feelings and anger and she works through it after the surgery and comes to terms with things she probably should have a long time ago. This helps her to heal not only mentally but physically as well.
This deal with a tough subject and there are some triggers but it was still a relatively quick read.
Thanks to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for this eArc in exchange for my review

Thank you so much @netgalley @letstalkbookspromo and @sidneyhalstonauthor for the ARC!❤️🎊

📌 Title : Happyish.
📌 Author : Jeanette Escudero.
📌 Genre : General Fiction.
📌 Personal Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐.25 / 5.

🌿 My Thoughts 🌿 :

Boy, do I get her feelings! Alex's weird responses to emotions is something I can deeply relate with. For me, it's not only the fear of coming off as indifferent but also the harsh judgements that I have to face from everyone for not showing 'Proper' or expected reactions. Like Alex, I tend to build a wall around myself during emotional distress and my body snaps into autopilot because I'm terrified of being vulnerable. It's so exhausting. If she were real, we could have had a great laugh talking about how ridiculously we avoid confrontations. Maybe it's due to the similarities we share, I found her an easily lovable character and rooted for her since the very beginning tho she's much braver and stronger than me. I can't imagine being in her place, losing the closest person without any prior notice and being forced to deal with cerebral meningioma - a stupid brain tumor, fear of losing the job, plus the insurance on top of the past trauma surrounding medical issues. She tries her best not to be a burden without knowing what a wonderful being she already is. Her friends, co-workers and parents : Mima and Mom are the best kind of support system who stuck with her despite her attempts to push them away. David was a great addition to her life. His gentleness and quite accurate understanding of who Alex is certainly helped her to tackle the anxiety and the shock that came with the diagnosis. Then there are Donna and Heather - absolute sweethearts.

It also occurred to me that I am fond of books where the protagonist goes on a road trip after a life-altering incident and finds his/her true self in the journey. Happyish is that and so much more because of the mental health representation, quirky side characters, strong and loving family bondings, loyal yet scary friends who tell the truth without sugar-coating it, heartwarming character developments, and the lessons I've personally learnt from it. Recommended!

Happy-ish can describe many things. For example, most of us would, the majority of the time, say we are happy. Ish. Being truly happy is a whole other business. And so Jeanette Escudero's Happyish could really be describing any of us on any given day. But it doesn't. It starts with Alex Martinez. One a very special day. The one year anniversary of her divorce. And she is truly happy about it. Or she should be.
If it wasn't for Bob. Bob isn't her ex-husband, no, Bob comes into her life the day of her big divorce celebration and it's the name she gives the unpronouceable tumor she finds out is growing inside her.
None of us know how we would react in such a situation, so while Alex' reaction is somewhat odd, maybe that's her way to deal? Because instead of booking straight in for surgery – as suggested by her doctor – she names her pesky "little problem" Bob and ignores him. When things go wrong at work and she is urged to take a vacation, she finally makes a plan. The plan is still to ignore Bob, not tell her mothers, and travel.
The book starts off a little slow while she ignores Bob and deals with her work problems, but as she starts her travels, we find out more about her late sister, whose bucketlist she is trying to tick off, and how much it affected her and her mothers. Her travel adventures and travel companions are entertaining and she becomes a lot more loveable.
That's when things become serious, the headaches start getting stronger and more regular, and she is forced to face Bob. It is also when the books turns from funny to pulling on your heart strings.
Needless to say there is a bit of everything: some family drama, funny travel companions, a good-looking hiking guide, friendship and some serious health complications – just the right thing to curl up on the sofa as the days are rapidly becoming colder.

“That was me: an almost–dead potted plant that woke up a year later and realized — holy crap, I’m blooming! I’ve survived. Things will be all right.“

“Less then an hour ago, freaking rainbows were practically shooting out of my butt. And now here I am, with a tumor.”

“I’m going on vacation, and I’m middle-aged. Life doesn’t come with a remote. You have to get up and change it yourself.“

“You’re a people pleaser, and that’s a wonderful quality, but sometimes you need to be a little selfish. You’re no good to anyone if you’re falling apart yourself.”

The MC has a cerebral meningioma. She’s a year out from her divorce. She feels unfulfilled and has lost her creativity at work. Something’s gotta give.

So she “runs away” not actually runs away but takes some time to get away and do all of the things the tumor may ultimately keep her from doing in the future. Also, the tumor is named Bob…it took me a minute to realize that. I don’t know it that was intentional or I was slow realizing it lol.

This is sort of coming of age story of resilience, growth, friendship and coming to terms with many issues. The story also involves a deep rooted loss. It has sweet elements of romance but with zero spice 🌶. There is also a heartwarming LBGTQ representation in this one.

It was an all around solid read.

Sometimes we have the worst day ever and it just keeps getting worse. It’s tough to lean on friends and family when you’re used to being independent. That’s Alex’s life in a nutshell. She’s celebrating a year of divorce, a job promotion and feeling good, until she wasn’t. Alex is strong willed and stubborn when it comes to dealing with some challenging news. I love how she took time for herself and paused her stresses to think. This book was delightful and engaging, her new friendships added to her strength. I think everyone could walk away feeling stronger after reading this book. I was fortunate to get an early copy and wrote this review voluntarily.

I loved Happyish. It’s the kind of book that makes you laugh, cry and infuriates you all at the same time. Alex is a great character. She’s so real I felt like I got to know her really well. Her behaviour frustrated the hell out of me at times. Why did she need to make everything so hard? She was so hard on herself. I wanted to hug her and shake her at the same time. Her decision-making process is not the best but understandable. She was so human and real and flawed. I’d highly recommend this.

I was initially attracted to Happyish by Jeanette Escudero because of the title. What is happiness? What makes us happy? Can one ever be truly happy?

This is an enjoyable, easy-to-read book - you can easily read it in a day/weekend.

Alex Martinez has plans to celebrate the one year anniversary of her divorce only to be sidetracked by a brain tumor diagnosis.

I'm a lot like Alex. We don't tell our family to shield them from worry, forge ahead with our to-do list and think you'll get to the health issue, eventually. It isn't until Alex's boss demands she take some vacation time that she slowly comes to terms with the reality and possible severity of the situation.

She embarks on a vacation to the Grand Canyon where she meets David, a tour guide. She then takes a spontaneous trip to Costa Rica, then wraps up her travels in Puerto Rico.

I love how the author doesn't tie the ending into a perfect, pretty bow. Life isn't perfect, but for Alex, it's optimistic. It's Happyish.

I am thankful to NetGalley for the ARC in return of an honest review.

This is one of those books that make me feel for the characters and think about what I would do in their circumstances. I enjoyed the author’s writing style immensely and would love to read more by them in the future.

Recommended: yep
For a story with "last day to live" vibes, for a lot of character reflection, for lovely settings and journeys that'll make your feet itch to wander

Thoughts:
Key point to jump straight to because there's one big, obvious question when the blurb and point of the book is about a woman learning she has a brain tumor: the ending was unexpected, but in a good way. I felt like I learned a lot about myself through the way the ending was handled, and that was an interesting (and maybe humbling) experience in itself. I won't say exactly what happens, just that it was done well and added to the rest of the story building up to that critical moment.

A lot of the joy I got from this book was from Alex's journeys. As a wanderer myself, the visuals of the places she goes were vivid and stunning and made me want to be there. Yes, even with noisy AF monkeys, because it's all part of the experience, isn't it? The descriptions of each area make me think the author has been there before because of how engrossing they were. I wanted to be sat on a rock in the Grand Canyon at sunset as well.

And of course, the main thread of the story is Alex's fear and self-discovery through these journeys. It's no surprise to anyone but Alex, but she has a lot of repressed feelings about her past, present, and unknown future. As she's in these wild places, she's sitting with herself a lot and coming to terms with all the things she should have reckoned with long ago. Meanwhile, she's constantly being proven wrong about how alone she feels, in the best way. There's so much support around her even when she doesn't see it, and that was a lovely part of the story.

It's hardest to see things up close, the things that affect you, clearly. Alex embodies that, because daaang did she feel dense AF sometimes! It got a bit frustrating to watch her keep running away from seemingly obvious feelings, but she got there in the end on her own path. Still, her emotional distance was a bit wearing, especially as she kept attributing it to being One of The Guys which simultaneously dismisses the idea that men can have, recognize, and/or express feelings. /sigh.

Overall, I enjoyed this as it was a lot of story and development packed into a fairly short amount of book. Between the life changes, setting changes, and character reflection, it moved along quickly and helped set the feeling that Alex had of time potentially running short.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a free advanced copy. This is my honest review!

The story
It’s been exactly one year since Alex got divorced, but the day turns even more sour when an appointment to get her migraine checked reveals a benign brain tumour. This diagnosis would be terrible for anyone, but Alex lost her younger sister as a teen to leukaemia that was meant to be treatable, it is especially devastating. She holds the information from her mothers, and instead embarks on a journey to visit places she and Annabel planned to visit.

My thoughts
This story is hard to read, but also beautiful in the ways that emotionally restrained Alex shines a light into the different parts of herself that need attention. As each journey reveals a little more, she deals with that aspect. When she finally has the surgery she needs, she is forced to deal with her worst fears and accept help from those that love her. I read Jeanette Escudero’s The Apology Project in 2021 and loved it. This story has similarities, but less of the love interest and more emphasis on friend and parent relationships ❤️

Alex's diagnosis stuns her, coming as it does just as she thinks she's moving upward after a divorce. However, now she's got to cope with a complicated brain tumor and figure out how to tell her mothers that she's ill. So, in a somewhat immature move, she takes off on the trip her dead sIster planned. Oh she knows she has to go home but she's got to learn a few things first- chief among them how to accept help from others. It's a quick, emotional read. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

This is the first book I have read by Jeanette Escudero and I sincerely enjoyed it. While this book deals with very heavy and emotional subject matter, the tone of writing and free-spirited attitude of the characters give it just the boost it needs to make it adventurous and fun to read.

When I was browsing through NetGalley, the book's cover and title initially caught my eye. I love the idea of being "happyish" and I believe that's incredibly relatable for readers. I will say that this book will likely be better suited for a female audience based on the story itself, main character, and themes of motherhood and female friendships.

The book developed at an easy-to-read pace and I never felt confused by the plot. Some of the scenes are pretty hilarious and this book didn't have to work hard to make me smile.

I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy Katherine Center or Christina Lauren novels. Overall, I gave this book 3.5 stars.

I loved this book so much! A female main character who is faced with unwelcome bad news and learns her strength and resilience. It’s the story of the power of self, friendships, and of course love along the way.

Very appropriate title, but grab. Your. Kleenex. Alex and her emotions felt so real. Slow start for me, but very relatable.

This book was good. The story follows a year in Alex’s life where her life is thrown into upheaval with problems, one after another. She keeps her feelings in check and doesn’t let friends and family into her life. She is a people pleaser and does not want to be a burden on others. At thirty five she is diagnosed with a tumor but doesn’t want to ask for help or tell her friends. So, instead, she goes on a few little trips in attempts to outrun her problems. As she travels, she meets new people and finds a different way to look at things. This book is full of motivational quotes that make me think about my own life. The ending had me in tears. Definitely a book that would be classified as women’s fiction. I am grateful for the DRC from NetGally and Lake Union Publishing. This review is my own.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC for an exchange for an honest review.

This is great book, I had a good time reading it.

Happyish tells the story of Alex, a divorced mid-30’s marketing executive who is diagnosed with a brain tumor. This scary diagnosis leads her to make some impulsive decisions to see some of the world before she faces the risks associated with surgery.

This book starts a bit slow, then feels rushed later on. The first 1/3 of the book is setting the scene, giving Alex’s background, establishing her reasons for making certain decisions later in the book.

Alex is a woman who has a hard time relying on others. She is fiercely independent while still being a people-pleaser. She strives to keep her emotions in check, be stable and reliable, and take care of those she loves. As she ventures into the unknown on a whirlwind adventure, we begin to understand why she is this way—due to trauma from her childhood.

Alex’s adventure helps her uncover and work through some of these issues, while also coming to terms with the unknowns in her future. She travels to find herself and to reconnect with her family and friends. She also finds new friends along the way.

I felt that the final portion of the book was quite rushed. We spend most of the book looking ahead (or avoiding looking ahead) to Alex’s brain surgery. Then it happens quickly, characters pop in an out during recovery, then there is an epilogue tying things up.

I enjoyed this book and I thought it raised some great characters and a promising premise, but I felt it wasn’t as deep and detailed as I had hoped. I wanted to get to know David more. I wanted to understand Alex’s mom more. I wanted to meet Alex’s ex-husband and get some resolution there. I wanted to see more of her recovery and how it changed her attitude. Instead, I was left wanting and couldn’t give this one more than three stars.

I’d describe this book as realistic fiction. The author has done an amazing job at creating imaginary characters and situations that depict the world and society. The characters focus on themes of growing, self-discovery and confronting personal and social problems. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.