Happy All the Time

What a great idea to release Colwin's books as ebooks! Like her other work, this one is clever, insightful, and beautifully written.

How wonderful that we can now take Laurie Colwin's sweetest story with us on our e-readers, wherever we go. Reading a little bit of Colwin has to be the best meditative way to start the day. I'm a longtime fan and will treasure the extra materials in the book. She's greatly missed. And don't forget Goodbye Without Leaving, my all-time fave of Colwin's work.

I have long been a fan of Laurie Colwin's work. Every collection is like a breath of fresh air.

Happy All The Time by Laurie Colvin tells the story of Guido and Vincent, third cousins and best friends, and of Holly and Misty, the two women they eventually meet and marry. Character-driven stories are great, even better if the book’s really all about personal relationships. It’s not only romantic relationships, one of the most delightful minor arcs is between hardworking Misty and the wealthy dilettante who owns the company and indulges his whims in managing her department.

The novel is all about people interacting with each other. There’s almost no tension in this book, mostly we watch people going about their lives and making the sort of minor choices that lead to larger outcomes, and understanding or misunderstanding each other. The tone reminded me of a Maeve Binchy novel, if all the characters were wealthy Manhattanites, that is.

I love stories about developed characters and personal relationships, and in this novel, there was almost no plot to distract from the personalities in the book. Instead of tension and drama with manufactured arguments and reconciliations, this was just a gentle rumination on why we fall for the people we love, and how relationships grow and change.

Happy All The Time is hardly a dramatic page-turner, but it’s still really hard to put it down.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher to review.