Katherine Center

Talked into a wilderness-survival course after her divorce, a 32-year-old woman embarks on a three-week stint in the Wyoming mountain wilderness, where she learns unexpected lessons about standing up for herself and confronting her fears. Original.

A Novel

Happiness for Beginners

this is now my fourth? katherine center book, so by now i think i understand her MO. i obviously enjoy her books, considering i've read four of them, but this one might be the weakest to me so far. i found jake a little too childish in the beginning of the book prior to the actual hike — perhaps a little too childish for helen to believably have fallen in interest with, at the very least, by that point — and i thought the transition from helen seeing jake is her kid brother's best friend to her seeing jake as a romantic partner was a little rocky. i loved jake once we got on the actual hike and saw him being so competent and charismatic out in the wilderness, and i really did enjoy helen's emotional journey on the hike. i didn't really have any issues with the hiking arc! but i did feel like overall, helen's actions felt too immature for her age. the way she got so angry at jake to the extent that she wanted him to pretend not to know her felt childish and really mean for no reason. i also felt like she spent so much time just waiting for jake to do something instead of communicating what she wanted or asking jake for herself. she still felt so passive in her relationship with jake, which, granted, she did think he and windy had a thing, but she could have also asked him openly... like girl your previous marriage didn't work out so you have to take some lessons away from the experience! i wish we had gotten more sweet moments with helen and jake that weren't colored by windy once the hike actually started and helen started realizing her feelings ran deeply, because i felt like too many of their interactions were layered with helen suppressing her feelings for windy's sake. i did resonate with the bits about being older — i have thought to myself many times that some early 20s kids just need to be roughed up by life a bit to understand life past 25 haha BUT i am around helen's age and simply cannot believe someone from our generation has not heard of the cupid shuffle. EVERYONE OUR AGE KNOWS THE CUPID SHUFFLE. we had to do the cupid shuffle at like every single middle school and high school dance... bar and bat mitvahs... weddings... HELEN WHERE WERE YOU. i ALSO wish we had seen more of helen and jake beyond that month together in the epilogue, especially considering so much of their future was up in the air. anyway. overall i feel like, yes, women can be flawed and very mean and they are still deserving of love. but i don't have to like it! i do find that i am really really adoring how truly caring and kind and down bad katherine center's mls are, so i will obviously continue reading her books lol i can't stop now. on to the next one!

lucia

Ralie Sutton

Super cute. Maybe the first romance novel I've truly liked... probably because of the fair amount of hiking in it.

Katelyn Caillouet

Sonia Grgas

** spoiler alert **
           Loved it! Characters that make sense all the way through and (spoiler) a happy ending.

Me pareció muy cute pero después de leer dual points of view, sentí que faltó demasiado por saber :/ quería saber que sentía, pensaba jake 😭

Valeria 

A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter, thirty-two, lets her annoying, ten years younger brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It's supposed to be a chance for her to pull herself together again, but when she discovers that her brother's even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can't imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen's well-behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming where she will survive mosquito infestations, a surprise summer blizzard, and a group of sorority girls. Yet, despite everything, the vast wilderness has a way of making Helen's own little life seem bigger, too. And, somehow the people who annoy her the most start teaching her the very things she needs to learn. Like how to stand up for herself. And how being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes you just have to get really, really lost before you can even have a hope of being found.

Jan Talkington

I enjoyed this light read romance. Believable people and while no real surprises or great depth of detail, it was the perfect read for the mood I was in.

Dani 

Alexandra

lucy lou

ausra

Nohemi Reale

Steph

From the New York Times bestselling author of How to Walk Away and Things You Save in a Fire Helen Carpenter can’t quite seem to bounce back. Newly divorced at thirty-two, her life has fallen apart beyond her ability to put it together again. So when her annoying younger brother, Duncan, convinces her to sign up for a hardcore wilderness survival course in the backwoods of Wyoming—she hopes it’ll be exactly what she needs. Instead, it’s a disaster. It’s nothing like she wants, or expects, or anticipates. She doesn’t anticipate the surprise summer blizzard, for example—or the blisters, or the rutting elk, or the mean pack of sorority girls. And she especiallydoesn’t anticipate that her annoying brother’s even-more-annoying best friend, Jake, will show up for the exact same course—and distract her, derail her, and . . . kiss her. But it turns out sometimes disaster can teach you exactly the things you need to learn. Like how to keep going, even when you think you can’t. How being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes getting really, really lost is your only hope of getting found. Happiness for Beginners is Katherine Center at her most heart-warming, captivating best—a nourishing, page-turning, up-all-night read about how to get back up. It’s a story that looks at how our struggles lead us to our strengths. How love is always worth it. And how the more good things we look for, the more we find.

Happiness for Beginners A Novel

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