Review - Happy & You Know It

Happy & You Know It

by Laura Hankin

Fiction

Release date 05/19/2020

384 pages

3 out of 5 stars

According to the publisher, "After her former band shot to superstardom without her, Claire reluctantly agrees to a gig as a playgroup musician for overprivileged infants on New York’s Park Avenue. Claire is surprised to discover that she is smitten with her new employers, a welcoming clique of wellness addicts with impossibly shiny hair, who whirl from juice cleanse to overpriced miracle vitamins to spin class with limitless energy.

There is perfect hostess Whitney who is on the brink of social-media stardom and just needs to find a way to keep her perfect life from falling apart. Caustically funny, recent stay-at-home mom Amara who is struggling to embrace her new identity. And old money, veteran mom Gwen who never misses an opportunity to dole out parenting advice. But as Claire grows closer to the cool women who pay her bills, she uncovers secrets and betrayals that no amount of activated charcoal can fix.

Filled with humor and shocking twists, Happy and You Know It is a brilliant take on motherhood—exposing it as yet another way for society to pass judgment on women—while also exploring the baffling magnetism of curated social-media lives that are designed to make us feel unworthy. But, ultimately, this dazzling novel celebrates the unlikely bonds that form, and the power that can be unlocked, when a group of very different women is thrown together when each is at her most vulnerable."

Happy & You Know It takes us behind the scenes of a playgroup formed by wealthy Manhattan moms through the lens of Claire, a musician who was once on the brink of success and is now forced to take whatever gigs she can get.  It's quite an unlikely pairing - Claire is a Midwesterner who feels like an outsider, struggling to pay her bills in NYC, and the playgroup moms, Whitney, Amara, and Gwen, have it all; they are wealthy, successful, and super fit.  Despite having seemingly nothing in common, Claire eventually gets taken into the fold, and that's where things really get interesting.

On the surface, this book seems to be a fluffy and superficial read, as if Real Housewives jumped from the screen to the page.  This, however, is not the case - Happy & You Know It tackles several modern issues:  the pressure of social media, fitness and wellness trends (and scams), and the trap of feeling like you have to have it all.  All of these themes tie together to end in an explosive twist that I had absolutely no idea was coming.  

This book gets three out of five stars from me.  For the most part, I did enjoy it.  I live to watch my Real Housewives, so it's a pretty safe bet that I will like any book that follows a similar format.  I also thought that the deeper issues explored were interesting and relevant.  For adults today, and I think especially for women, there is so much pressure to be successful at work, eat healthy and exercise to stay in shape, have a beautiful home, wear the best clothes, raise the perfect family, and make sure you post it all on Instagram.  If there's one takeaway from this story, it's that none of us really have it all, and that's perfectly ok.  

My main criticism for this book is the level of whining that came from the main characters.  We can all acknowledge that pressure to be perfect is pervasive in our society, and it is a real problem.  However, I personally know many, many people who manage to work, take care of their kids, and still maintain a social life, and they do it all with significantly less complaining than the women in this book.  After a while, it got hard to stomach just how much Whitney, Amara, and Gwen whined and complained about how miserable and difficult their lives are, without ever acknowledging how people without the extreme wealth and social standing manage.  I personally have a very low tolerance for "poor little rich girls," and I found this element of the book to be extremely grating.  

Outside of its eye-rolling moments, Happy & You Know It had a good mix of serious, funny, and suspenseful moments.  It's a really interesting mash-up of women's fiction and a thriller, which I have not come across before.  While this book isn't for everyone, if you are a fan of either of those two genres, I think you would enjoy this book.