Hanna Jameson

At a New York City wedding, in early summer, four people are trying to get their lives started. Yun has everything he ever wanted, but somehow it's never enough. Emory is finally making her mark, but feels the shame more than the success. Andrew just wants to be honest, but has lied to himself his whole life. Fin can't resist falling in love, but can't help wrecking it all either. That night they see something none of them can explain. Someone sits down, and simply gives up. Soon it's happening all around them. Is it an illness, or a decision? How can anyone really be happy when the only choice is to feel everything - or nothing at all?

The Newest Novel from the Bestselling Author of the Last. for Fans of Emily John St. Mandel, Sally Rooney and Patricia Lockwood

Are You Happy Now

Ellie 

‘Women change for everyone. Men just don’t notice.’

‘I realised you were never going to stop trying to become this imaginary version of yourself where you’re happy because you’re rich or signed to a big label or something huge like that. Even when things did go well, you were never happy because it wasn’t like this ultimate fantasy you already made up in your head.’

‘I’m not sad, I just don’t feel much any more.’

‘It’s also difficult to explain, but it conveys an emotion which is something like homesickness, nostalgia and regret all rolled into one. It’s a longing for home, but it’s a home that’s not specified or definite. It’s not a physical place, not a home you can really return to.’

‘sometimes things you find beautiful are only meant to be appreciated from a distance.’

‘It’s not always rational, what we want from people.’

‘he would smile as if to say, I am not getting tired of you, and Fin would almost – not quite, but almost –  believe it.’

‘But sometimes it does feel personal somehow, the way nothing ever gets better. Like I wonder, am I here to just watch everything get stranger and worse? And it makes me so fucking angry.’ He swallowed, turning again to rest his forearms on the fence, eyes on the backs of his hands, flexing and unflexing. ‘But I’m not angry about the right things, I don’t give a shit about any of those people. I know it sounds bad but I really don’t. I’m angry that I was doing kinda okay for myself, I felt like things were coming together with my music and everything, and then the world fucks it up for me again.’

‘Childhood sweethearts, as a concept, had never made sense to him. How did two people stay together during years where surely they should have changed, shed their childish former selves? He found it hard to believe it was possible without both parties deluding themselves, or deluding the other. Either way, someone pretending to be something they weren’t.‘

‘he had always believed – if you stripped away the illusion of easy-flowing beauty, the insidious narcotic-thick bliss designed to cloud your better judgement – love was about blood and gore, and what you were willing to rip out or cut off.‘

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