Review of "Something Like Happy" by Eva Woods

Something Like Happy
by Eva Woods

A disheartened woman realizes the promise of hope when she joins her dying friend’s “One Hundred Happy Days” project.  

Thirty-five year-old Annie Hebden has given up on luck, love and happiness after losing her baby to SIDS and her husband to her former best friend. Her grey days are filled going from her small, drab apartment, to her mundane job, to the hospital where she visits her memory-challenged mother.  Thirty-five year-old Polly Leonard’s days are filled with sunshine and laughter. She is vivacious, flamboyant, and seemingly unstoppable. And why shouldn’t she be? She’s only dying of cancer. After a chance meeting in the hospital lobby, an unlikely friendship is forged between the two women who are on opposite ends of the outlook-on-life spectrum. With approximately three months to live, Polly proposes that Annie join her “One Hundred Happy Days” project, with a goal to do one thing each day that makes her happy. Annie gives every reason not to (sick mum, crappy flat, irresponsible flatmate,) but gives in to Polly’s, “You could try, though. Why not?” Soon Annie finds herself immersed in Polly’s world, meeting Polly’s well-meaning, but unhappy parents, her gay, but living in the closet brother, and her neurologist, Dr. Max, with whom Annie shares a mutual attraction. Throughout the Chapters, starting with “Day 1” and ending with “Day 100” Polly and Annie share painful secrets, new experiences, and laughter. They heal each other and those around them in unexpected ways. The love/hate relationship between Annie and Dr. Max is unduly frustrating, but the flawed, charming characters carry the story past this hiccup. It is broody Dr. Max who best conveys the story’s message: “The thing about happiness, Annie – sometimes it’s in the contrasts. Hot baths on a cold day. Cool drink in the sun. That feeling when your car almost skids on the ice for a second and then you’re fine – it’s hard to really appreciate things unless you know what it’s like without them.”

Readers of Woods’ past novels, “The Thirsty List” and the “Ex Factor,” will recognize the author’s signature down-on-her-luck to lucky-in-love theme in “Something Like Happy."

Pub Date: Sept. 5^th 2017         Page count: 384pp       Review Posted Online: February 11, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5258-1135-7       Publisher: Graydon House