Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC to review!

3.5 out of 5 stars

So Happy Together by Olivia Worley starts off strong with a compelling premise and sharp social commentary, blending reality TV drama with psychological suspense. The story hooks you early as the cast of an influencer reunion show finds themselves trapped on an island with secrets unraveling fast.

I really enjoyed the first half—the pacing was brisk, the stakes were clear, and the character dynamics kept me intrigued. However, the second half lost a bit of that momentum for me. Some of the twists felt a little rushed or underdeveloped, and the suspense started to fizzle just when it should have been peaking.

That said, Worley’s writing is punchy and fun, and the book has a lot to say about performative personas and internet fame. It’s a quick, entertaining read with some thoughtful moments, even if it didn’t fully stick the landing.

This book was so good! As soon as I read the first line in the description I was hooked. This was so twisty and absolutely impossible to put down!

So Happy Together by Olivia Worley follows Jane as she struggles through a break-up with Colin, and starts to obsess over him. After some light stalking ensues, a series of crazy events start to unravel as Jane keeps inserting herself deeper into Colin’s life.

This book was so engaging and full of twists and turns (my favorite). While Colin’s character lacked depth, Jane’s character made up for it. In a similar vein as Joe Goldberg, we get to live inside her head throughout the book, and I found it a very interesting place to live. It may have jumped around a bit at times, but I couldn’t get enough and found myself reading well into the night to see what would happen next.

While I know that there are many reviews here that thought the story lacked and was too confusing, I felt just the opposite. I found it interesting and addictive. If you love the YOU series by Caroline Kepnes, I would definitely recommend checking out So Happy Together.

I’m really looking forward to checking out more by Olivia Worley, as I loved her writing style. Many thanks to the Author, NetGalley, and St. Martin’s Press | Minotaur Books for gifting me an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own and I truly enjoyed this one!

A wonderful read!
This novel drew me in from the very first page and kept me hooked until the end. The characters were vibrant and relatable, the writing was engaging, and the story had just the right balance of heart and humor. Highly recommend!
Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed reading So Happy Together. It’s a fast-paced mystery with plenty of twists and turns that kept me turning the pages. From the start, there’s a sense of tension and unease that builds steadily as the story unfolds. The author does a solid job of maintaining suspense throughout, and I was definitely entertained. That said, I’m a bit torn on my final rating—it's somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars for me.

Now, I do have to say that none of the characters were particularly likeable. They all had their flaws, secrets, and motives, which made it difficult to trust anyone—but that also worked in the book’s favor. It added to the mystery, and I genuinely felt like any one of them could have been responsible for what happened. At times, I even suspected they might all be in on it together. That uncertainty kept me intrigued.

However, there were some parts of the story that fell a little flat. Certain scenes felt underdeveloped or rushed, and I think the pacing could have used a bit more variety. There wasn’t a ton of emotional depth, and because the characters weren’t especially relatable or sympathetic, I didn’t feel as invested in their outcomes as I wanted to be. Still, the plot moved quickly enough that I didn’t lose interest.

The ending, while satisfying in terms of tying up the main mystery, didn’t really surprise me. I was hoping for a bigger twist or a more dramatic reveal. It felt a little predictable. I also wish the final scene had more of a definitive close—it left me wanting a bit more resolution, especially after all the buildup.

All in all, though, this was an enjoyable read. It’s the kind of book that’s easy to binge over a weekend, especially if you’re in the mood for a contemporary mystery with a slightly dark edge. It kept me guessing, even if it didn’t blow me away, and I’d be curious to see what Olivia Worley writes next.

Thank you NetGalley and Minotaur for the ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. 4.25/5!!!!!

I really loved this book!! I was hooked from the start and flew through this one! I will definitely be reading more Olivia Worley :)

Jane, a playwright living in NYC, is stuck on her ex, Colin. Although they only dated for a few months, Jane is convinced that he is her soulmate. Overly determined to get him back, Jane hopes for a chance run-in and stalks their first date spot… finally, eight grueling weeks later, there is Colin on a date with the beautiful, luminous Zoe. Only then do things take a turn when Zoe seeks out Jane to tell her that she knows she and Colin are only friends from college… that’s when Jane snakes the opportunity to run with this lie. As Jane and Zoe become more intwined, Colin becomes more mysterious and secrets begin to bubble to the surface.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one… I thought it would be a story about a stalker, jealous-ex girlfriend, while it is, it is so much more! Jane, the main character and our unreliable narrator, is somewhat relatable, and a little dark. I had such secondhand cringe, but was also on the edge of my seat, watching her balance her obsession with Colin while forging a friendship with Zoe.

Zoe’s evolution throughout the book was shocking and perfectly executed! All of the characters have a mostly distorted view of reality, which kept me guessing the entire time!

Another fun element… if you’re into Shakespeare, the tragedy that is Jane’s current life situation, is paralleled with Hamlet.

The story moves quick and the ending is wildly shocking.

This felt like 3+ different stories in the same book. It starts off with Jane’s obsession with Colin and that’s what the whole book could have been about. A girls unhealthy obsession with a guy and how deep and dark it can get but then the story takes a turn and introduces Zoe. Enter Zoe and it feels like a different book because now there is a mystery to solve. Then it seems to turn into a girl power / man hating theme towards the end. I kept reading to see where it was going but it wasn’t my favorite. I would have cut out a little of the weirdness, stuck with the obsession and given Colin more character building, he didn’t feel like an important character to this plot but he was essentially everything.

Main Characters:
-- Jane Williams – 24 years old, playwright who lives in New York City, edits college application essays for a living, graduated from New York University, focused on winning back Colin who broke up with her several weeks ago after six dates
-- Zoe Ember – an artist and influencer who lives in Brooklyn, Colin’s new girlfriend who befriends Jane
-- Colin Hillgrove – 24 years old, software engineer who graduated from Penn, tells Zoe that he and Jane we in the same dorm at Penn to explain how he knows her
-- Ben MacKenna – comedian, grew up with Colin, Colin’s best friend and current roommate

Based on the description, this book held a lot of potential. Jilted lover Jane sets her sights on winning back her ex Colin. In the process, she befriends his new girlfriend Zoe who thinks Jane and Colin know each other from living in the same dorm in college. Jane actually likes Zoe but believes that Colin is her soulmate. She clearly can’t have them both.

From the Prologue, we know that something has come to a head as the narrator, Jane, raises a knife. Chapter 1 takes us back three weeks with Jane on a date with Axel, who she met on a dating app. But she’s not interested in Axel. She has been going on dates every Friday for the past eight weeks at Colin’s favorite restaurant. Jane hopes to “accidentally” run into Colin to make him realize he made a mistake breaking things off.

After the date with Axel where Colin did she her, she scrolls through TikTok and happens across a video created by Colin’s date. Zoe’s video describes how to make your “Special Person” obsessed and how to manifest his desire to send you a text “like that.”

Jane is clearly the one obsessed, though, so much so that she begins stalking Zoe’s Instagram account the next morning. She discovers that Zoe is an up-and-coming artist with new gallery space. When she recognizes the logo of a coffee shop in Zoe’s Instagram post during a date with Colin, Jane searches for the shop closest to the gallery space. She knows that Colin likes long dates, so she takes the train into Brooklyn on the chance of running into him again.

While Jane forces herself not to look around the coffee shop for Colin, Zoe approaches her in line and invites her to join them at their table. Zoe wants to know what Colin was like in college because he told Zoe that’s how he knew Jane. Before they part ways, Zoe asks if they will see Jane that Friday at Colin’s birthday party. Colin absolutely wants nothing to do with Jane, but he can’t say anything without telling Zoe the truth. Jane, on the other hand, takes the opportunity to spend time with Colin to make him realize what he’s missing.

This gets us about 10% of the way through the story, and a lot happens in that 10%. However, the plot really slows down from there and becomes more about Zoe and Jane becoming friends, Zoe inviting Jane to things, Zoe trying to set Jane up with Colin’s roommate Ben. Jane tells Zoe about a play she wrote focused on Ophelia from Hamlet, and Zoe wants to read it because she always felt Ophelia was the most interesting character. And as much as Jane likes Zoe, she still maintains her focus on trying to win Colin back.

I was feeling like this would be a solid 3 stars. It held my interest, but it was slow. And the longer I read, the more I wanted the story to get moving. When it finally did, it became so chaotic (see spoilers below), and I really disliked the ending. It just feels like the author decided to throw everything into the mix to see what would stick. The author’s first two novels were young adult. This is her debut in adult fiction.

***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***

When the book starts, we assume that Jane is the only obsessed character. The entire story comes from her first-person point of view, so that makes sense. But when every character becomes a whack job with no rhyme or reason, that’s just an epic fail for me.

Let’s talk about Jane first. Jane truly is obsessed with Colin, but we have no idea why. When his roommate Ben warns her to be careful, she ignores him. When she finds a knife wrapped in a bloody sweatshirt in Colin’s drawer and overhears him yelling at someone on a phone call, she ignores all of it and chooses to still pursue him. When she sees him standing over his dead roommate with a knife, she actually helps him make Ben’s death look like a burglary gone bad.

Colin seems to be being stalked by a mysterious “Leigh,” who reaches out asking if he misses her. Zoe and Jane discover that Leigh is Ben’s ex from college who drowned in a bathtub, and they suspect Colin of killing her. After Ben’s death, Colin goes home. Zoe invites Jane to go with her to his hometown. While Colin and Zoe go for a walk, Jane finds a shoebox full of information about Leigh, so she becomes confident that Colin DID kill Leigh. Jane and Zoe leave and decide they will confront Colin to get him to confess to Leigh’s murder at Zoe’s art show—a show that will also feature part of Jane’s play where Ophelia…drowns in a bathtub.

Zoe turns out to have been Leigh’s best friend and tells Jane she always believed Colin killed Leigh. She came across Colin on the dating app and figures he dated Jane because she looks a little like Leigh. Leigh introduced Zoe to Colin as Zee only once, so she pursues him, confident he won’t remember her. She also started stalking him as Leigh and researching Jane. When Zoe discovers that Jane’s father killed himself after her mother died, she suspects that Jane actually killed me (she did). Because of that, she befriends Jane, thinking she can use Jane to get back at Colin.

In the end, Zoe drugs Colin at the art show and ties him up in an abandoned warehouse. She and Jane confront him about everything. He tries telling Jane that he loves her and that Zoe manipulated him. When Jane asks why he ended things with her, he says he thinks he wanted her to be Leigh but then he realized that wasn’t fair. He tells Jane that sometimes she made it too easy for him and that’s always been kind of a turn-off for him. That’s when she kills him?

Fast forward to six months later, Jane moved in with Zoe. Jane wrote and Zoe is directing an off-Broadway play. Colin hasn’t been seen since the art show, and his parents received an e-mail from his account confessing to Leigh’s and Ben’s murders.

Zoe leaves early to get ready for the show, and Jane looks for something in Zoe’s nightstand drawer. She finds Ben’s phone as well as Zoe’s copy of Hamlet. Tucked inside is an article about Leigh’s death. The article confirms that Leigh died of a drug overdose, which is what Colin told her before she killed him. So now Jane knows that Colin was innocent and that Zoe killed Ben, but she just puts everything back in the drawer and closes it.

WHAAAAAT?!?!

Like I said, too much chaos. Do not recommend. 🙂‍↔️

The first 1/2 of the book so good, definitely a 5 star! The last 1/2 of the book was not as good!
Worley crafts a compelling narrative through Jane's unreliable perspective, keeping readers on edge as they navigate the twists and turns of her psyche. The novel's pacing is deliberate, allowing for deep character development and a slow- burn tension that builds toward a shocking ending.

So Happy Together is a thought-provoking exploration of modern relationships and the dangers of unchecked obsession.

"It's a beautiful thing, watching something die. I never understood it until now- except he was wrong, in a way, because no one's dead yet, at least not by my hand, buy still, I think I know what he meant. It's this: the look in those eyes, knowing the line between life and death rests in my palm, a prophecy foretold by branches and ridges that only i can read."

Complex Characters, Obsession, and Control! 3.5 stars!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy! This book will be released 6/3/25.

What a hoot! I wish this one sustained the dark, DARKKK humor of its first half, but it certainly maintains momentum and goes zipping into some wild spaces. Jane, oh Jane, what a gal. It’s oddly easy to sympathize with her at first — even as we see things so clearly (well, at least we think so) — before she slips down a path that’s bonkers but incredibly fun to read. I’m not totally sold on her backstory, but I enjoyed every page of this.

I enjoyed this thrilling mystery travel alongside Jane and uncovering the identity of the Monster in the Dark!
The story starts at a slower pace, but by page 67, the tension takes a sharp and thrilling turn.
While many want to skip ahead and uncover the resolution, I recommend savoring the journey.
The suspense reminded me of some of my favorite edge-of-your-seat films — Fatal Attraction (“You won’t ignore me, Dan!”), the series You, and Single White Female starring Bridget Fonda — all capturing the intense, gripping tone of this book.
Buckle up, and maybe… keep the lights on!

A heartfelt thank you to St.Martin Press for providing this book for my review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the Advance Reader Copy of So Happy Together by Olivia Worley, releasing June 3, 2025!

This book had me completely hooked at the start. Jane’s messy obsession, the tangled friendships, the uneasy tension — I was flying through the pages, fully invested. Olivia Worley pulls readers into that chaotic headspace so well, and the early setup promised a wild, twisty ride full of toxic friendships and buried secrets.

But somewhere around the halfway point, the momentum slowed down — a lot. While it isn’t quite a slow-burn thriller, the story loses steam once you figure out the bigger picture early on. The characters, especially Jane and Zoe, kept making exhausting decisions, and the plot started feeling repetitive instead of building toward something bigger. I went from tearing through chapters to forcing myself to push through the second half.

And while I won’t spoil anything, the ending left me frustrated. Some toxic ties don't deserve second chances, and it felt like certain characters never fully faced the consequences they should have.

Still, I can’t deny that Olivia Worley nails the emotional messiness at the heart of the story — obsession, insecurity, misplaced loyalty — and even when I was frustrated, I stayed curious enough to see it through.

If you like thrillers with chaotic characters, complicated friendships, and a dark psychological edge, So Happy Together is worth checking out.

Rating: 3.75 stars rounded up to 4 stars.

read if you like:
👁️‍🗨️ stalking
🎭 Shakespeare
🔪 mysterious deaths

summary:
Well this book was not what I expected — in a great way! It follows Jane, a playwriter living in NYC who is struggling to get over her ex, Colin. The two dated for a few months, and after sleeping together, he broke things off, leaving her confused and alone. Determined to get him back, she stalks him on a date with a new woman, hoping for a chance run-in to make him fall back in love with her. However, things take an ironic turn when Colin’s new girl, Zoe, runs into Jane, and says she knows Jane and Colin are friends from college. Despite this being a lie, Jane takes Zoe’s nativity and runs with it, engraining herself in Zoe’s life and world. As Colin becomes darker and more mysterious, Jane finds Zoe as her only ally — and potentially the only person who can help her expose the truth about who he really is.

I thought this would be a story about stalking and creepy ex-girlfriends, and while it is, it is so much more than that. Jane’s character is a little dark but also a little relatable, and I cringed watching her balance her friendship with Zoe with her obsession with Colin. Zoe is another fascinating character and the evolution she has throughout the book is totally unexpected. The dark tragedy parallels between Hamlet and Jane’s story are fortuitous, and for those who love Shakespeare, you’ll get even more out of it than I did.

The story moves quickly the whole time, and I promise you won’t want to put the book down. The ending is somewhat predictable but also wildly shocking — keeping you on your toes!

Thank you to St Martins Press, Minotaur Books and Net Galley for the advanced copy to review. If you love a good NYC-set thriller, check this out when it releases on June 3!

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was a 3.75/5. At times the main character was a little bit annoying for me, but it was a unique and fresh read and still kept me guessing. I'm glad I got to read it and know friends of mine who will also enjoy it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for providing me with an eARC of So Happy Together in exchange for my honest review!

As someone who's been inclined towards Olivia Worley's writing, with People to Follow being an especially suspenseful and twisty thriller, I'm glad to say So Happy Together is a winner. I remember the premise hooking me right in when I first picked up this book months ago, and once I dived into Jane's tale, that only enthralled me even more deeply as I witness our antihero engage in behavior that leaves me shaking my head and going, "No, no, Jane... Why?" The stalkery actions, the obsessiveness, the vehement hunger for love and validation from a charming man that she has heart eyes for—these are all things that give me the creeps and the cringe, but I'm also capable of lending sympathy her way because of how sincerely she wants to feel loved and because of her backstory.

This is the type of tale that could have unfolded more predictably, but thankfully, Worley keeps her writing clever enough to subvert my expectations with a series of captivating twists that add nuance to the dynamics that build up between Jane, Zoe, and Colin. Once we reach the conclusion, I'm left exiting the book on a morally conflicted note that provides some mighty complicated material for the audience to chew on. And all of that causes me to officially rate So Happy Together 4.25 out of 5 stars, which I'm rounding down to 4 stars. I'll continue to anticipate more of Worley's novels.

Woah. That last 50% was exhilarating! I couldn’t put it down. We got some of Jane’s backstory, but also the timeline of Colin’s relationships. We get to see who Ben and Zoe are. All these characters were so important and I didn’t expect that outcome at all. A lot of people probably saw the outcome way early on, but I almost never do and I think that makes books extra good to me. It’s so fun to follow this mystery through rich houses, parties, and mysterious people! I loved the connection to Hamlet and Ophelia that Zoe and Jane had at the art show. Then how it correlated to the events after was super cool. Seeing the pieces fit together was fascinating.

This was a work of art, so I definitely recommend folks read it once it’s released!

5/5 stars for love, mystery, and Ophelia!

**Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a free review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This was definitely an interesting read, but also a little cringey. This book follows a girl named Jane who is basically stalking a boy named Colin. Not really sure what made her so obsessed after only 6 dates but that girl is determined. There are some good plot twists that kept me wanting to finish.

This book was a wild ride!

Jane has been on 6 dates with Colin and she swears he is her soulmate. Colin does not feel the same. He breaks up with her and moves in rather swiftly. Jane finds out who Colin’s new girlfriend is and becomes friends with her to stay in his life. Zoe, Colin’s girlfriend, is actually someone that Jane grows to like.

Then the murders start and Jane starts looking at Colin in a new light. Not enough to stop pursuing him, just enough to know that she has to stay on her toes.

I had the twist of this book figured out, I just didn’t know how it would come together. I found Jane to be extremely unstable through the whole book. I also found Colin to be rather boring. So I wasn’t sure what was so great about him to pursue him to this extent. Overall the book was a good read.

Jane meets Colin, and they have six dates, but then he ghosts her. So Jane decides that Colin must be mistaken and sets out to win him back. Enter new girlfriend Zoe. Zoe and Jane become friends, and off the story goes. This is listed as a thriller, but it is the slowest thriller I have ever read. We are more than halfway through the book before we even have a body. I can't say that anything in the book is not to my liking, except that it is so slow with action. But, I also can't say it was a book I would want to read again. Would I recommend the book? Yes, with an explanation that the book is not an edge-of-your-seat thriller.

Why did I waste my time with these demented youngsters? From the beginning, it's unclear why Jane cares about Colin, other than obsession. As things spiral through ever-more-ridiculous events, I kept hoping there was some point... but no. Two stars because I at least made it through the whole thing and didn't completely give up.