Are You Happy Now is a quiet, intelligent, emotional and moving novel. And compulsively readable. Like all the best dystopian novels, it gets to the heart of how ordinary people experience extraordinary events. The concept is brilliant (psychogenic catatonia), both as a storyline and for it's possible metaphorical interpretations.

The novel works well on an intellectual level: it sparks a lot of 'what if?' thinking as well as reflections about what it is to be young in today's world (and not just in terms of living through a global pandemic). But it's also a good read, even if you don't feel like putting too much thought into it. In other words, it allows you to think but doesn't force you to do so - I like that in a book :-)

It's got engaging characters (not all likeable, but mostly interesting), a good story, good dialogue and pacing, and it's well written. It's rather dark, occasionally nihilistic, and sad, but actually not depressing to read - I can't quite put my finger on why that is. I think some readers may be more dragged down by it while for others it may tap into ideas about resilience and optimism.

I would recommend it highly for any reader who likes books that explore stories about people living through adversity, and for book clubs in particular: it could trigger some interesting discussions!
3.5*

Are You Happy Now is the second novel I’ve read by this author. It follows four people. Yun a musician/DJ, Andrew a professor, Emory an aspiring news reporter and Fin a ballet student. All four are attending a wedding when they witness a guest at the wedding sit down in the middle of the dance floor. When guests try to help her up she refuses their help by lashing out. At first this looks as a one off incident but soon people across the world are doing the same.

This was an interesting read that not only covers a pandemic but questions the way people live and mental health issues. It’s not obvious at first that this is what the book is about but this is what I came away with after finishing this book.

I felt this was a well written book, it was easy to follow and although it didn’t feel particularly fast paced I wanted to read on. The characters are well done and develop well as the book progresses. However, I didn’t particularly like them. I mean I liked them at the beginning of the book but as the book progressed my feelings towards them started to change.

This was definitely looking to be my favourite book by Jameson however the ending is the reason for the lower rating. I found it predictable and left me unsatisfied. I did work out roughly how it would end about halfway through the book. Also I was expecting the whole thing to be more dystopian/ pandemic based as this is the vibe I got from the description.

This is definitely one of those books that won’t be for everyone but it was still a good read, and can’t wait to see what Jameson comes up with next!!

I would like to thank the publishers Penguin General UK and NetGalley for my eARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased thoughts.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Death, Mental Health and Mention of Suicide

My Rating 3.5 stars

I struggled to read this. The writing style was good I just didn't enjoy the storyline. I think it was too soon. I'm hoping to revisit again in the future and hopefully I can enjoy it mire when we are not still living during a pandemic

I was attracted to this book as it sounded intriguing. I enjoyed it to a certain extent, the premise was good as were the characters. However I felt it was a bit slow paced for me.

I was excited to read the latest book from Hanna Jameson. I loved The Last! Are You Happy Now has a different vibe. I don't think I've read a book where there is a global 'pandemic' of sorts, but this isn't the main story line. It is a story about a group of friends, and their emotional turmoil as they go through the pandemic and how this shapes them as people. I found the story interesting and the characters felt real, but the ending was dissatisfying. I know have more questions than I started with.

Rating: 3.5/5

Upon reading the synopsis of this book, this seemed like a really intriguing read, which it was in my opinion.

Following the lives of the four characters was interesting - seeing how they all coped throughout the pandemic at hand as well as realising things about themselves and what they want for their futures. Some I definitely liked more than others, but I loved the diversity of them all.

I really enjoyed the idea of the plot, and loved how the story ended, although I still wanted a bit of closure in regards to the pandemic side of things. Despite that, this book had me reflecting on things in life and had me asking questions that wouldn’t necessarily come straight to my mind. It could be a bit slow at times with the character’s relationships taking over the plot a little, but I still enjoyed this read and would pick up further works from Hanna Jameson.

Bizarre but compelling, I couldn't put this down.

I absolutely love how it ended, with no real conclusion as to what the cause of this pandemic was and no cure, it left me wanting more but also strangely satisfied that there was no nicely wrapped-up ending.

Wow, this was a heavy and bleak read, but also quite brilliant.

A world that's lost hope. A generation plagued by anhedonia. A woman sits down at a wedding and never gets back up.

So begins a pamdemic of catatonia leading to death. Worldwide but by far concentrated in Western civilisations, there is no explanation, nor cure.

Focusing on four main characters - Yun; Emory; Andrew and Fin - each face their losses and challenges with their own unique style of coping - or not coping. The sense of life being an unbearable burden and a never ending hamster wheel of pointlessness runs through all their lives, but more so in Yun's.

This is not a book to bring comfort or joy, but it is a damning and true indictment of the way we are living, or should that be, existing. A call to arms perhaps?

It's hard to say I enjoyed this book. I was absorbed and engaged, but I guess I often read to escape, and this felt just a little too real to be comfortable. Definitely an interesting read and well written but I did feel quite depressed throughout. It will definitely be a marmite read I feel, but that isn't a bad thing.

I finally finished Are You Happy Now at midnight last night .. and I'm going to be honest I loved the first part of it but didn't love the last 30% ...
The story is about a global pandemic (no, not that one, don't worry) where people appear to be just sitting down and giving up but it is also about relationships and happiness. The themes of the story really appealed to me and I was hooked by the notion that people may be just giving up, was it an illness .. a virus? Or was it a choice?
Sadly I don't feel we really got enough of an understanding of what was happening (and maybe that was intentional by the author but I felt a bit robbed of an explanation) .. so the story felt a little hollow and although the characters were well thought out and described I also found them quite unlikeable (not in a good way) and wasn't overly invested in them.

I didn’t enjoy this book as I’d hoped I would. It’s not really about what the blurb implies which is part of the problem, the second being the characters that they whole premise centres around are unlikeable. Overall I found it a struggle.

3.5 stars

Headlines:
A different kind of pandemic
Relationship reactions to impending risk
Melancholy, sometimes sad and definitely not happy

Firstly, I just want to say that I do not read pandemic books, it's too early for me but this isn't like anything we experienced in recent years, apart from how humans behave. Most people will feel safe reading this in my opinion. I'm not going to spoil what format the events this book is built around take but suffice it to say, it's a clever concept.

This book was full of quirk and weirdness while being rather engrossing. The characters were completely eclectic and apart from Andrew who I liked, the rest I just observed with popcorn. Yun who I initally liked, didn't cope with what the world was offering and that ending was strangely surprising. Emory I liked more early on but her characterisation lost a bit of shading as it went on. Fin was an interesting addition later on.

This book's strengths lie in the telling of human reaction to fear, risk and resilience. It's fascinating how life rolls on in some ways and how relationships form and crash along the way. Societal reactions to what happened were very in the background and I thought that was missing a bit from the narrative.

I'm aware this review is somewhat vague but I think this is a read best served without prior knowledge.

Thank you to Viking Books for the review copy.

“That this was the trade off. The price of happiness. In order to feel happy he had to feel everything.”

In 2023, I’d imagine that most of us are sick (and getting sicker) of stories about pandemics. Mass illness has been all encompassing for three years now, and we’re still in the midst of it. We’re still getting sick, but we’re living our lives as best we can.

And so comes Hanna Jameson’s novel Are You Happy Now. Yet another story about illness, about how we continue to live despite, and in spite of, the world being on fire. Only this one’s different. Because people are simply sitting down in the middle of the street as if the wind has left their sails, stopped pushing them forward into an inevitable future. Imagine if sitting down became the next thing to be afraid of. Is your friend sitting down just because she’s tired, or is she sitting down because she has to, becoming entirely unresponsive except to lash out violently when encouraged to eat or practice any form of self care? Is it the type of sitting down from which she won’t ever get back up again? This is the premise of Jameson’s novel, but if you’re looking for an apocalyptic story in which the world is ending, you’ve come to the wrong place.

The premise is interesting, but this is entirely a novel which is centred around its characters. It’s a coming of age story in many ways, as much as a story about twenty and thirty somethings can be a coming of age story.

This is a novel about relationships, romantic and platonic. It’s a novel about loneliness, about illness, about fear, about unmatched expectations. It’s about art, music, society and philosophy. It’s a novel about our daily interactions, about how we interact with and care for the people around us, be they strangers or loved ones.

We follow four main characters. First Yun and Andrew, old friends, followed by journalist Emory and dancer Fin. If I’ve unlearned anything about ingesting stories over the past number of years, it’s that I don’t have to love a character to love their story. Which was a necessary perspective when it came to this novel, because our first protagonist is Yun, a jaded musician who is just almost likeable, but somehow never quite made it there for me. His relationship with Emory is interesting, in that it’s imperfect, and sometimes bland and often confusing, and reflects how sometimes we feel most lonely beside the person we’re supposed to be closest to.
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.

Jameson’s writing is so easily digestible. Some of her prose delivers a punch directly to the gut, a left hook swinging from out of nowhere.

Some of the story at times almost feels too clean, as though some plot points are at times too convenient, and it’s certainly an imperfect novel.

That said, it’s certainly not unenjoyable and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to experience it for myself.

This seemed like it would be a dystopian/epidemic story, however it was much more about peoples relationships. I didn’t really find any of the characters likeable or enjoy their interactions with each other. It wasn’t a bad read but it was definitely too slow for my liking.

This is the second book that I've read from this author and I enjoyed it. The cover is not inspiring, but the story and characters are much better than you'd expect at first glance!

I really enjoyed The Last and I think I was hoping for more of the apocalyptic thriller vibe with this. It certainly sounds apocalyptic but is actually much more an observation of modern life and Gen Z; needing cheap thrills to become ‘happy’ but then unable to hold onto it, becoming unsatisfied and hopelessly lost and whhhhhiiiiinnnnyyyyy.

I didn’t like any of the characters; they were all so far up their whiny backsides I could not connect with them. But maybe this was the intention (and I’m not Gen Z so maybe a younger reader would resonate more).

Jameson is a great writer. It’s interesting that this started life as a screenplay as I can see it working on film.

Overall I was glad to read this but it didn’t grab me in the same way that The Last did & I found it a slow read.

Thank you to Netgalley & Viking for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a bit different from what I was expecting but it was a good read albeit a bit too close to home in our post covid world despite it being a dystopian book.
The book starts at a wedding where someone collapses in a catatonic state. She never recovers.
Throughout the book more and more young people succumb to a virus which leaves them unable to eat or to function. One thought is that these people are depressed and are simply choosing to give up on life.
The book is seen through the eyes of the young who see the mess the world is in. Many young people today will be able to relate to these issues. Today’s parents worry about their young just as the parents of these young people worry.
Some of the young are Asian with their own issues and some are questioning their sexuality.
This is not an easy read and there are no easy answers but it is interesting nonetheless. Thanks once again NetGalley!

This was a very strange book. At times it made jumps and I wasn't sure where I was and was left not knowing who was the subject. Overall though it mademe stop and think

I thought the premise was potentially very interesting - basically a mental health 'epidemic' - and the central question of whether this was caused by people becoming victim to an infectious agent or simply 'giving up' on life was very brave of the author.

However, I didn't particularly enjoy the story. The characters were 20-30 year olds living in New York city and we were witness to their thought processes, motivations and desires, but they mostly seemed selfish and unstable (although perhaps this was the point...) The book focused a great deal on their sexual relationships, which happened to be mostly gay or bisexual, much to the detriment of the main story. Progress was slow and it did unfortunately become rather tedious to read at times.

I didn't get the ending - I understand what happened (sad!) but not why or how, which left me feeling unsatisfied with the book. Maybe the whole thing went over my head. I was expecting pandemic / dystopia and I got angst-ridden young people and their many problems instead. Sorry, not one for me. Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for a review e-copy.

Love the cover and title, love the premise, love the characters...but the pace is too slow. Think this book is for a much younger reader. More relatable for the 20-something age group than the 50+ - i could not connect with the story.

After contemplating for a while decided to gove it a shot as I was unsure about this book after reading the reviews. Amd let me tell you for me it was a big nope. No offence to the author but reading this book left me asking what did I just read? Not that the plot was complicated or there was anything mind blowing, it was just the way it was written. I need books that tell me what exactly is happening, plain and simple. If you enjoyed this book great for me it wasn't it.