Hi friends, happy Wednesday, I hope you’re all doing well! Today I’m posting my review of Marlowe Granados’ novel Happy Hour.

This novel was long-listed for Canada Reads 2024.

Happy Hour by: Marlowe Granados: Isa and her best friend Gala just landed in New York City. By day they sell clothes in a market stall, at night, the city is their oyster as they take it by storm. Each night is a different location with a different crowd. The two live like they’ve got money, when it fact, it’s never been tighter and that puts a strain on their friendship. Chronicled through the eyes of Isa through her diary we get a glimpse of the high life and the low life the city can bare. The reader really wanted to like this, but it was too character driven for them. The plot felt very aimless in where it was going and it made it hard for them to want to like the characters because it just felt like they were going in circles with no end in sight. Then when it did end, it felt kinda abrupt. The reader gets that this was to take place over the course of the summer and when summer ends, so does the story, but it was like all these things happened to them and the reader just felt like, so what. They hoped it shaped them to becoming better people, but because it’s just over at the end of the summer, we’re just left to assume that. Also, this reader didn’t really care for all the things the characters were doing. Every day they were out for happy hour and going to clubs and out partying and the subject matter just didn’t interest the reader at all. The writing was good, and there was, tucked deep and hidden away, moments that the reader actually liked, but they were so far and few between that we wished we could have had more of it. There were moments between the two friends that were real and raw and the way the author talks about mother/daughter relationships, for all of five minutes, was so brutally honest and real, the reader couldn’t help but feel that in their soul. If we had gotten more moments like that, this reader would have probably liked this more, but that’s okay, this was not the novel for them, but it was still a decent reading experience.