This collection of poems explores themes of longing, vulnerability, and the pursuit of joy through raw and intimate language. Dubno’s voice is thoughtful and reflective, often capturing the fragile moments where happiness and love intersect with pain and uncertainty.

I appreciated the emotional honesty in many pieces, especially the way the poems hold space for both tenderness and complexity without feeling forced. There’s a quiet sincerity that runs through the work, which made some poems resonate deeply.

That said, the collection sometimes felt uneven. A few poems seemed less polished or a bit repetitive in theme, which pulled me out of the emotional momentum at times. I also wanted a bit more variety in tone or imagery to break up the contemplative mood.

Overall, Happiness and Love is a heartfelt collection that will appeal to readers who appreciate honest, intimate poetry focused on the nuances of human emotion. While it’s not without its flaws, the moments of genuine feeling made it worth reading.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC!

Happiness and Love by Zoe Dubno
A quiet, introspective exploration of modern life, desire, and emotional connection. Dubno’s writing is sharp and observant, offering a raw, honest take on what it means to pursue fulfillment in today’s world. A thoughtful read for literary fiction fans.

I absolutely loved this book. following her train of thought and side tangents while at the wake felt so real and true to how someone would actually think in this situation. i also loved that the story ended with the actress roasting eugine and nicole and calling them on thier bullshit and that all the narrators thoughts were finally said even if not by her. I also think the ending of her still saying that she would love to hang out again soon was so real in that no matter how hard we try to set boundaries with ourselves and others it's SO HARD to actually do.

Stylistically, I wish there were more paragraph breaks to make the text easier to read and follow but I also understand that having those breaks could disrupt the feeling of the whole book being a contstant train of thought.

This novel is a wickedly smart, darkly funny descent into the art world’s most toxic chambers—and it’s absolutely mesmerizing. Told with scalpel-sharp wit and an eye for the absurd, the story follows a disillusioned narrator as she returns to the scene of her former life: New York’s Lower East Side, where art and ambition bleed into vanity, and authenticity is just another aesthetic.

The setup is deceptively simple: a dinner party after a friend’s funeral. But what unfolds is a brilliant, slow-burning character study and social critique that unravels precisely. The narrator—cynical, observant, and unrelentingly honest—guides us through a room full of beautifully dressed, emotionally bankrupt creatives. From her vantage point on the white sofa, she dismantles every guest with scathing clarity, exposing the artifice of their interactions and the rot beneath their curated personas.

What makes this novel sing is its voice: dry, devastating, and alive with contempt that’s as earned as it is enjoyable. And while it’s easy to laugh at the grotesque gallery of personalities on display, the absolute brilliance lies in the narrator’s own complicity—her self-awareness that she is not above the emptiness she’s critiquing.

When the long-awaited guest arrives, and chaos inevitably follows, the novel has already laid bare its themes: the performative nature of grief, the commodification of identity, and the way nostalgia can both haunt and seduce. This is not just a satire of the art world—it’s a meditation on what happens when we build lives around performance and forget to ask what’s real.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Happiness and Love by Zoe Dubno is a vivid critique of pretension, mordernism, and artists.
It follows a woman as she is attending a dinner party in name of her former best friend, Rebecca, that died a few weeks earlier. It’s hosted by a couple that she has come to hate— Eugene and Nicole. And she reflects on her relationship with nearly every person in the room, she critiques their flaws and selfish acts that she has come to learn about. She hates everyone in the room, that’s obvious. She doesn’t hide in her narrative that absolute distaste for these people, which she no longer wants to be associated with. She’s constantly reflecting on her relationship with the guests at the “party”, especially Eugene with his egocentric wife. Although the dinner party is hosted in Rebecca’s name, they are all waiting on a new, up-and-coming actress to arrive. This literary device keeps the reader engaged with the plot (which, per se, is barely noticeable) throughout the whole book, which leads to a spectacularly done argument between two characters.

With prose that glides off the page, and humor that is never over-the-top, Dubno crafts a room full of awkwardness and complete awareness on the part of the narrator. She despises all of them, giving us, the reader, a spectacular look into all of these people’s of their lives. She makes fun of them, showing us every negative attribute associated with these pretentious artists, masterfully pairing sober tones with satirical ones.

I would really recommend this for readers of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, or any book that focuses on the despair of humanity through the lense of a woman who despises humans.

This is basically 200 pages of main character talking mad trash on some seriously pretentious tricks. Then another baddie comes in with fire and a mic drop.

The no chapter, no paragraph, no break format took getting used to...can't say it grew on me. It felt a bit meandering and I struggled with the writing style.

But overall? Who doesn't love to see an asshole getting taken down a couple notches? This was jolly good fun!

A disillusioned writer who's been roped into a performative dinner the very elitist,"in" group of artists, writers, wannabees, and at the center of it, and extremely wealthy benefactor couple. It's a short read but it reads like stream of consciousness, in the eloquent and scathing tone that we all wish we could adopt when we're roasting that old friend group that we think we've grown out of for the better.

There were so many delicious, hilarious rants - against the sycophantic and symbiotic relationship between the power couple and the artists they associate with.

hat even if you're not necessarily in with this kind of a group, you can relate to on some level because of the dynamic of how we all interoperate and because of that but also seems like the writer is partially roasting you. Or all of us.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. 2.75 round-up. Writing style took me a minute to get familiar with but the ending was nicely wrapped.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for an ARC of this book!

This book was a pleasant surprise! The perfect novel for those navigating difficult friendship in your twenties. "Happiness and Love" follows our quite vague narrator as she copes with the death of her best friend, and the estrangement from other friends. The novel is full of exploration of the artistic mind, and how friendships cement themselves in that sphere.

I ended up highlighting so many quotes from this book! One thing that I thought was really interesting was the notes on influences and inspiration in the back of the book. I would highly recommend giving that short section a good read. One listed influence was Kingsly Amis, which I could definitely pick up on in the prose!

Overall this book is perfect for those who are a little lost and want to feel a little less alone.

A sharp and often hilarious stream of consciousness of a woman who has had enough of her so-called “friends”. While she sits on a beautiful soft and expensive linen couch during an insufferable dinner party, our narrator recalls her memories and rebukes the guests.

The structure of the novel is intense (no breaks/paragraphs) and though that somewhat detracted from my enjoyment/reading ease, I loved the content. The last few sentences were a delight and offset the challenging format. If you are in the mood for an indulgent takedown of a group of self-appointed artistic elites and arbiters of taste, give this a read!

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

3 stars

The unnamed narrator is a woman in her thirties, returned to NYC after some years of self-exile abroad. It’s not clear why she returned, but it is not because of the funeral which, in small part, makes up the subject of the novel which, along with the dinner party after comprises its whole - the entity takes place over a number of hours. During the dinner party the recalls the funeral of her former friend Rebecca, who committed suicide. Now she is grudgingly(?) attending a dinner party given by former friends Eugene and Nicole, with whom she once lived, in their beautiful, moneyed apartment in the Bowery. The dinner is not in honor of Rebecca however, but, rather, is a “cultural evening” given for an actress from California. Alexander, who is also there, who is always at their home, was once the center of her world along with Eugene, Nicole and Rebecca.

That group, along with others, believes they make up the young cultural elite of the city. They go to the important things, they make the things important by being there. The narrator was completely enmeshed in their world, left New York to escape them, but she never really has.

First off, be aware there are no paragraphs in this book, so if that is the sort of affectation that drives you crazy, well, you’ve been warned. Nearly everyone here is an awful person. Yes, pitiful in their way, but not so much that anything is excused. The men are worse than the women, which is a rather pitiful stab at feminism, I guess?

What if the narrator? She left, but her mind never left, and the author uses the actress to attack the group, not the narrator. They are “the ones who believe that their work is more important, more virtuous, different in its very nature to the work people actually enjoy.” I think there are probably groups of big city denizens who will love this book, but I just found it decent, somewhat tedious and repetitive at times.

I was excited to read Happiness and Love because I love books set over the course of a single evening. With its dinner party setting, this one seemed like the perfect fit. The narrator, visiting NYC after the loss of a dear friend, finds herself surrounded by her old, pretentious social circle—only to realize she has completely outgrown them. Not only does she no longer relate to them, but she actively dislikes them.

My biggest struggle with this book was its complete lack of division—no chapters, no breaks, not even bullet points. While I typically enjoy stream-of-consciousness writing, this felt more like one long, unbroken run-on sentence. I understand what the author was aiming for, but I think the story would have been more effective as a novella.

So witty, so smart, so funny, so bright, so delightful! I love books set in one day/night, and Zoe Dubno is masterful at handling pacing and time alongside humor and satire. I LOL'ed and winced and loved every minute!

HAPPINESS AND LOVE takes the reader into the art world in New York City. Written as though as stream of consciousness (no chapters or paragraphs), the story revolves around the main character who finds herself attending a dinner party after the recent death of her best friend. The party is for a famous actress who arrives well beyond fashionably late with other arrogant, self-conceited artists in attendance. Sitting on the couch (of course a very expensive one), she takes in and observes the type of people she had left behind. It's definitely not a warm book, as it felt more cold, distant, and critical which I believe was the author's intent. A unique writing style that I'm sure some readers will love and some not so much.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book is definitely going to be divisive. Unfortunately it just didn’t work for me. I understand that the main character is not likable, but being inside her brain that long was too much for me. I think readers will either love this or hate it. Unfortunately for me, I am the latter.

What an unforgettable read.

Zoe Dubno’s Happiness and Love is a brilliant, acerbic stream-of-consciousness novel that calls to mind the story of Thomas Bernhard’s Woodcutters. We follow a young woman trapped—physically and emotionally—at a dinner party hosted by people she once called friends but now views with increasing disdain.

Set in a massive Manhattan apartment and populated by the worst kind of self-obsessed elitists, the evening spirals into a psychological reckoning. Ostensibly, the dinner is in memory of Rebecca, the narrator’s estranged friend, a recently deceased actress. But as the night drags on, the real reason for the gathering becomes clear: it's not a memorial at all, but a celebration for a rising star, a young celebrity who represents everything hollow in the culture the narrator detests.

What follows is an unraveling—of false friendships, of performative grief and of the cult of fame. Told in one long, biting monologue, Happiness and Love is both a character study and a cultural takedown, culminating in a finale led by the guest of honor that is as satisfying as it absolutely scathing!

Just as it's muse, the Woodcutters, Happiness and Love is a iconic critique of consumerism, self-obsession, and the emptiness of modern social performance—all in under 200 pages.

#Scribner #HappinessAndLove #ZoeDubno #literaryfiction #dinnerpartyfromhell #thomasbernhardvibes

This book is absolutely brutal.
All the narrative happens inside the protagonist head during a single night, as she attends a dîner party after her estranged friend's funeral.
All her thoughts are pure vitriol.
I loved the talent of the protagonist to dissect the worst flaws of the people around her, to the point of cruelty, and as her thoughts unravelled, her own hypocrisy became more and more difficult to stand.
It is definitely a very original and impactful read.
I think the writing is great. It is very raw, and has interesting even somehow funny moments but honestly it was a tough read and I'm glad it was short one, I'm not sure I could have stomach more of it.

I truly think this has become a new favorite book of mine. There’s nothing I love more than books that dress down pseudo-intellectual rich people, and this one absolutely delivered. I once again think of the Virginia Woolf quote about how people read fiction like it’s gossip- this book absolutely fits that description. At first I didn’t know what to make of the structure of the prose, as it is all one continuous paragraph and uses run-on sentences. However, rather than feeling sloppy, this style of writing really allows you to sink deeply into it and take it all in as it bombards you with absolute insanity. A very fun read, I’d recommend it to anyone who has been a part of the art world in any capacity.

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for the ebook. This is a pretty amazing achievement for a first novel that is one long, angry (also observant and very funny) screed about falling into the cult of the New York art world, escaping to Europe and then, running out of a viable visa, right back in New York and ambushed to rejoin this despised group for one night only under the guise of celebrating one who has just passed away, but that only turns into a night to try and claw a famous actress into their clutches, only to have the actress speak simply and eviscerate the whole room. Even though this short novel is written without chapter or paragraph breaks, she still takes her time identifying each major character, showing the ways that first attracted her, only to find their deadly flaws by the end. It’s quite a performance.