Happy Place

Das war der letzte Emily Henry Roman für mich.

Manchmal fühle ich mich, als wäre es meine Lebensaufgabe, gehypte Bücher zu lesen, um sie dann mies zu finden und eine enttäuschte Rezension zu schreiben.

Eigentlich hat mir gar nichts an dem Buch gefallen, um ehrlich zu sein. Aber für nur einen Stern war es nicht "problematisch" genug. Andererseits fand ich "Happy Place" auch so uninteressant, dass ich keine 2 Sterne geben kann. Gut gefallen hat mir der Schreibstil, an dem ich nichts auszusetzen habe.

Was ich nicht mochte 1) Die Charakterisierung der Figuren. Ehrlich, ich kann nach über 400 Seiten zu keiner der sechs Freundinnen Attribute finden. Dazu fühlten sich die Figuren auch an, als wären sie Anfang und nicht Ende 20. 2) Die fehlende Kommunikation. Die Geschichte wäre in 100 Seiten erzählt gewesen, wenn Harriet und Wyn einmal gescheit miteinander geredet hätten. 3) Wieso sind Harriet und Wyn nicht offen und ehrlich zu ihren Freund*innen? Diese Freundschaften sollen schon so um die zehn Jahre umfassen und trotzdem wird hier ein Schauspiel aufgeführt... Und auch die anderen Figuren haben so bescheuerte Geheimnisse... Da bin ich mal wieder froh, dass meine Freundinnen ganz anders sind. 4) Harriets Entscheidung am Ende. Also wirklich, das hat mir echt den Rest gegeben. Das war so unglaubwürdig und hat mich so wütend gemacht. Ich glaube nicht, dass ihre Zukunft rosig und glücklich sein wird... 5) Wyn war kein guter love interest. Ich kann nicht verstehen, wieso Harriet sich nach dem College noch für Wyn interessiert. Er ist ein richtiges Baby, der kaum Ambitionen hat und Harriet vorhält, dass sie als angehende Gehirnchirurgin zu klug für ihn ist.. Die beiden passen einfach nicht zusammen und im echten Leben wären sie unglücklich miteinander.

On the plus side, this is a sweet romance that is a nice escape for some readers. I liked romances as a preteen but have not read many since, though theoretically I am not opposed to them. For example, the Outlander was fun. Throw in a little bit of lightly researched history and some sexy scenarios/magic and I am appeased. I also really loved Kushiel's Legacy, which was absolutely fantasist. However, it takes place in another universe and doesn't pretend at anything else. Also, the sex was hot and dark. And I am not against reading about the trials and tribulations of the young and privileged, Sally Rooney is great.
But I hated this book. It was a tedious, ridiculous series of insignificant events. An endless whine. It is redeemed somewhat by its lack of pretension, and there is not an antagonist to be found outside of the characters' collective lack of vision. Oh, and it was hilariously bad. There are some passages, omg.
So every character, every situation, is contrived to make the reader vicariously live this current dream of finishing college and making it, the unexamined life not worth living where your problems are resolvable and whatever other problems out there exist in another country or neighborhood. The life where the person you love is perfect and you all waltz around in a dreamscape America where nothing weird or gross ever happens.
Despite the characters purported intellectual achievements (two of them both get into Columbia Law/Medical School, which I found statistically improbable) they fret over their mildly troubled childhoods and trite courtships for hundreds of pages, drowning the hapless reader into a stream of vapid misunderstandings that could be so easily resolved with direct communication and emotional maturity. Keeping a breakup secret is an important plot driver as is not hurting anyone's feelings- but finishing medical school or delivering one goddamn insightful idea or witty allusion-definitely not. And we are to believe that these sweet and insipid beings have the wherewithal to compete so successfully in the harsh terrain of American capitalism? Where do they get their wine-soaked affluent lives, lacking both age and wit? One of them is a heiress, which sounds glamorous but this chick is no Peggy Guggenheim or Patty Hearst I can assure you of that. Maybe there are people like the ones in this book everywhere. And that is the point where I considered classifying this as both romance and horror. Not because they are terrible people, they do not have enough dimensions for that, rather because they are a banal group of buddies that symbolize an attainment of superficial connection and achievement that frightens me in its shallow exclusivity. These characters draw in the lines and at their hearts, are completely contrived to support a myth. They are brought together only by the sentimental nostalgia for college life and new found adult anxiety felt by the author's target audience. I am pretty sure I would have hated this book in my twenties as well though.
I would also like to complain about the sex in this book. It was too sweet and monogamous. And if the couple at the heart of the story has such sexual tension there is no way they would keep it together for so long through all those alcohol binges. I was also pissed off that from the first chapter it is obvious that they are all gonna get married. Also, why have none of them had anything happen to them since college? No new friends, no new learning experiences, it is like they are all stuck at 24.
No ideas, no unsolvable grief or concerns, no witticisms, just sweating each other's emotional state? Jesus Christ I cannot believe that suffragettes starved and first wave feminists weathered ostracism and violent misogyny only so women today would throw away all ambition (the lead character is an aspiring brain surgeon, really? I LOL hard at that) to daydream about vanilla sex with a loving partner in a world where everything is just fine.
Yet this yarn was much more unfair to men, because none of these men exist in real life. They are centerfolds for female lust, selfless lovers, pining away, heroes with big weepy hearts. Any woman who thinks she will meet a guy like this Wyn character will certainly die alone.
Perhaps this is a strong reaction for a common piece of chick lit. However, in the story there is a dangerous fantasy that is implied. That this is what people think succeeding at life is, that this is what a happy relationship looks like-it is a bit dangerous. Just like pronography is frequently not real sex with real women, this book is not real relationships with real people and may lead one who embraces it too much to some serious disappointment. However, as a lover of stories and believer in reading whatever the hell you want, I give credit to the readers who will take what they want and leave the rest. Just to say, I don't think I will be reading this sort of tripe in the near future. Give me a bad mystery over a good romance any day.