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A review by screamdogreads
Are You Happy Now by Hanna Jameson
4.0
"He looked at the girl in the back of the car and wished he could feel genuine concern, but all he felt was dehydrated. Being driven through New York at night always made him melancholy."
Are You Happy Now is one of those quiet yet devastating kind of novels. It's at once both insightful and hazy, almost with a disconnected kind of air about it. In fact, it reads much like a crash course in melancholy, a lighter version of the novels I'd typically read yet still all too captivating and addictive. It's a really rather difficult book to read and to review, Are You Happy Now presents us with a shockingly vivid portrayal of depression cast against an almost numb end of the world, dystopic hellscape. Unease and dread creep so slowly into this text that at first, it's almost unnoticeable, by the end, however, it's impossible to ignore.
Ironically, reading Are You Happy Now feels much like giving up under the exhausting and crushing weight of all that surrounds us. It's a very melodramatic novel in a hyper-specific way, the characters are absolutely ridiculous that the text borders on satirical while also somehow managing to be endearing. It produces a strange feeling, all this melodrama with the detachment found in the story, nothing overwrought yet everything kind of absurd. Once it's all said and done, it's a novel of vagueness and uncertainty, there's never a real answer. Are we witnessing the end of the world or, simply, lives coming to a close? To the credit of the novel, this sort of open-ended, ambiguity only enhances the story further.
Are You Happy Now is one of those quiet yet devastating kind of novels. It's at once both insightful and hazy, almost with a disconnected kind of air about it. In fact, it reads much like a crash course in melancholy, a lighter version of the novels I'd typically read yet still all too captivating and addictive. It's a really rather difficult book to read and to review, Are You Happy Now presents us with a shockingly vivid portrayal of depression cast against an almost numb end of the world, dystopic hellscape. Unease and dread creep so slowly into this text that at first, it's almost unnoticeable, by the end, however, it's impossible to ignore.
Ironically, reading Are You Happy Now feels much like giving up under the exhausting and crushing weight of all that surrounds us. It's a very melodramatic novel in a hyper-specific way, the characters are absolutely ridiculous that the text borders on satirical while also somehow managing to be endearing. It produces a strange feeling, all this melodrama with the detachment found in the story, nothing overwrought yet everything kind of absurd. Once it's all said and done, it's a novel of vagueness and uncertainty, there's never a real answer. Are we witnessing the end of the world or, simply, lives coming to a close? To the credit of the novel, this sort of open-ended, ambiguity only enhances the story further.
"You know, the last time someone on our floor killed themselves he just threw himself in front of the L train. Why couldn't she just do something like that? Like everyone else? She couldn't just die, she had to cause this much drama. You must have to really hate everyone, to decide you're going to die like that."
Overall, it was a delightful experience to explore a story so bleak and crushing but, that doesn't come with the intention of melting your brain away. It's a beautiful story, and a beautiful book, one that's wildly fascinating and boldly brutal. Nothing is particularly shocking and yet it still manages to hit like a speeding Mack truck. It raises more questions than it answers, it's existential dread in print form.
"He tasted blood but still couldn't feel any pain. He couldn't feel anything. He thought about Kevin and how he should not tell him about this, about how dying really did feel like nothing. Then he was gone."