dnf’d this around halfway through because i found it to be increasingly meandering and even a little pointless. the writing was ok, but the characters were just insufferable, which is something i always struggle with.

I really enjoyed this novel. I enjoy novels where the narrative is internal dialog. It makes you feel like you are that person, at that moment in time. This was a dark story at times but very interesting and kept me enraptured. Look forward to more by this author.

Delaney Nolan’s Happy Bad is a haunting and lyrical debut that burrows into the psychic landscape of a young woman grappling with trauma, self-destruction, and fleeting moments of tenderness. Set against the sun-bleached decay of the American South, the novel leans into an atmosphere of emotional rawness, where desire, violence, and survival twist together like tangled roots.

At the heart of the story is our unnamed narrator, a young woman fresh out of prison, wandering through a world that offers her little redemption or structure. Her internal monologue—fragmented, poetic, and at times brutally honest—draws readers into a disorienting headspace shaped by cycles of abuse, addiction, and alienation. The narrative is non-linear and impressionistic, more interested in sensation and emotional texture than plot mechanics, echoing the works of writers like Denis Johnson or Jenny Offill.

Nolan’s prose is what elevates Happy Bad beyond its grim subject matter. Her language is sharp, intimate, and visceral, capable of swerving from stark realism to aching beauty within a single paragraph. Every line feels deliberate, heavy with implication, yet light enough to float—much like the narrator herself, drifting between connection and isolation.

The novel’s strength lies in its refusal to moralize or neatly resolve its conflicts. Nolan instead opts to render her protagonist’s world in unflinching clarity, where love is both a salve and a wound, and healing is never guaranteed. While this ambiguity may frustrate some readers looking for narrative closure, it resonates as a deeply honest portrayal of a fractured life.

Happy Bad is a compact, brutal, and beautiful novel that lingers long after the final page. Delaney Nolan has crafted a voice that feels urgent and necessary—an aching howl into the silence of forgotten lives.

Beatrice is a simultaneously detached and profoundly present. Her internal dialogue is irreverent and comically specific. I LOVE this sort of narrator. I also enjoy coming of age stories, and here we get multiple. I recommend to anyone who enjoys the same.

I loved the premise: in an ecologically bankrupt US in the near future (real), a young woman, Beatrice, who works at a home for girls is tasked with moving them cross-state as the largest environmental crisis yet rages. Also, the girls are going through withdrawal from their pre-FDA approval psych meds. 😅

This story alternates between the world and family of Beatrice’s youth, and those she’s found herself a part of in the present. I think there are some incredibly sad and touching moments tempered by humor.

My chief issues were pacing in the second half, which seemed to start to limp towards the end, and the way that the humor sort of drained away. I could see that being intentional, it just didn’t feel that way to me. I also felt that the book ended abruptly.

I still really enjoyed this and am happy I got a chance to read it. The references to Eastern North Carolina really tugged at my heartstrings since that’s where I spent my childhood.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the eARC.

*Happy Bad* is a brilliant and chaotic road trip novel set in a near-future East Texas, where the world is crumbling under climate destruction and social unrest. Beatrice, a caregiver at an underfunded treatment center for troubled teenage girls, must navigate a brutal heatwave, a massive blackout, and escalating violence as she tries to lead the girls to safety. With sharp humor and a raw, politically charged narrative, this novel is both a poignant exploration of human connection and a fierce critique of societal collapse.

Happy Bad is a scorching, unforgettable novel that plunges readers into the sweltering chaos of near-future East Texas, where disaster—natural, social, and psychological—brews at every corner. The story follows Beatrice, a weary yet quietly fierce worker at Twin Bridge, a perpetually under-resourced residential treatment center for troubled girls who are, quite literally, simmering under the weight of a failing system.

What begins as an already-tense portrait of a broken institution escalates into a desperate evacuation when a relentless heat wave causes a blackout. With it, Nolan plunges us into a road-trip-from-hell narrative that somehow manages to be both bleak and funny, violent and tender. The prose is sharp, almost feverish, with moments of surreal humor and biting observation. The tension doesn’t let up, but neither does the compassion—each girl and staff member is drawn with a vivid, aching humanity.

This novel brims with political fury but never sacrifices character for commentary. Beatrice is a deeply compelling protagonist—flawed, burdened by secrets, yet ultimately striving toward some flicker of grace in an unrelenting world. Happy Bad is not just a post-disaster novel; it’s a revelation of how systems fail, how people break, and how they persist anyway.

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

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the eARC of this book!

I will have to admit, the general premise of the book sounded right up my alley. I'm big into the climate change/world going to ruin topic in books at the moment, and recently finished another that was in a similar vein. I couldn't find myself truly connecting with the characters the way I wanted to. I enjoyed the writing itself, I found it quirky in the way I really do like my books to be. Everything else about it was just... meh.

I also have to note, the eARC's formatting made things extremely difficult to read on kindle, which may very well have hindered the reading experience. I will most likely be rereading once the book itself becomes available for purchase, just because I did feel like I missed out on something due to the formatting.

HAPPY BAD
DEBUT NOVEL by Delaney Nolan
for @astrapublishinghouse @astrahousebooks

⭐️⭐️.✨— (2.5/5 stars)
Delaney Nolan's Happy Bad threw me headfirst into Twin Bridge, where the apocalypse outside is less scary than the pharmaceutically loaded teenage residents within its walls. Beatrice and her crew are just trying to keep the chaos contained, barely managing to keep all the girls in line on a normal day.. but when a heatwave-induced blackout hits East-Texas, the power goes out & stays out — all bets are officially off. Think a funny, heartwarming disaster with a sprinkle of righteous fury.

The premise had me doing a little happy (bad) dance. "GIRL, INTERRUPTED" meets "LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND"? Sign. Me. Up.

But our main girly Beatrice, is sort of a wet paper bag, her detached narration made it hard for me to stay interested at times. Some of the chapters were longer than an East-Texas summer. && then it somehow felt like the book just ended, without any actual ending.

I didn’t hate the book, I didn’t love the book — It just... existed. It feels like theres a whole lot of material hiding in the POV of one of those teen girls, (Teresa maybe), begging to be told. Perspective from one of the girls inbetween the adult narrators really could have taken this story to the next level;

————-::TRANSPARENCY:: ————-
I was gifted an #eARC from the publisher of this book in exchange for an honest review via #NetGalley! Thank you @astrapublishinghouse @astrahousebooks & @Netgalley

* The formatting of this ARC made it very difficult to read on mobile, or keep notes /highlight passages. Wasn’t impossible, but definitely took some getting used to and in the beginning really slowed me down.

The premise sounded really interesting and quirky. I was excited to read about the mental health aspects especially surrounding women specifically. But I really didn’t connect or care about any of the characters and the book just felt kind of randomly put together. Overall the book fell flat.

The formatting of this e-book was very messed up so I had a hard time following the story. Entire sentences had no spaces and sometimes the it would stop mid sentence and pick up during another conversation/part of the story?

https://www.instagram.com/p/DI19iSIN6fU/?igsh=MTR1anZxNGRjaWJ5YQ==

I wanted to love this because the concept really appealed to me. Society slowly breaking down due to climate issues, a strange drug that promises to fix mentally unwell young women and an oddly detached narrator who looks after them. I think elements of this were great, but ultimately I found the detached nature of the narrative voice hard to warm to and it made it hard for me to stay interested. I would read more from this author though as there was some really promising writing here.

Happy Bad

I couldn't get into it.

The idea is great, a bunch of institutionalized girls and staff running from a gruesome crime, while committing multiple felonies in the process.
It's like "The One Who Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest" but darker and more deranged.
I personally had a tough time getting past the main character Beatrice's internal dialog, and some of the chapters could have been cut shorter. Other characters were more interesting but only had a few lines here and there.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.