This is What Happy Looks Like | Book Review

This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

Published: April 2nd 2013 by Headline

Goodreads summary: If fate sent you an email, would you answer? 

When teenage movie star Graham Larkin accidentally sends small town girl Ellie O'Neill an email about his pet pig, the two seventeen-year-olds strike up a witty and unforgettable correspondence, discussing everything under the sun, except for their names or backgrounds. 

Then Graham finds out that Ellie's Maine hometown is the perfect location for his latest film, and he decides to take their relationship from online to in-person. But can a star as famous as Graham really start a relationship with an ordinary girl like Ellie? And why does Ellie want to avoid the media's spotlight at all costs.

REVIEW

For this book, the title won't play trick you. This is exactly what it is about: make the reader happy. This is the kind of book that reminded me why I love reading so much: because I want to have a smile on my face while I read, and to be happy that I read it. This is a cute contemporary, perfect for summer time, really.

I really liked the premise of this book, how it was just luck that made the two characters starting talking to each other. Both of them had their own personalities and their own secrets, they were very realistic. On one hand, Ellie has reasons of her own not to want to be in the spotlight, because of her past. I enjoyed that aspect of the story, because it made the book more important than the romance: family, but also friendship, are important, it's still sometimes ignored in YA. 

On the other hand, we saw Graham struggling with his celebrity (of course, it's a classic, but it's something I love reading about) and his ordinary life, like how to interact with his parents now that he lived alone at seventeen. The way Jennifer E. Smith talked about celebrity, with its scandals and everything else felt true. Honestly, I cried a little at the end, because it was so beautiful. 

Of course, some people will say this book was predictable and that the situation was a little unrealistic - which explains why it won't be a 5 stars book - but that's why we love to read that kind of book, don't we? Because it makes us happy and confident in ourselves in humanity.