Reviewer: Rhonda
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
Jean Banks won’t give up on love. It’s the prism through which she sees the world, the stuff of the independent movies she produces in New York City, and it created the son and daughter she shares with her director husband, Sam. But the course of love doesn’t run smooth for a harried woman in her mid-thirties who feel her choices and responsibilities solidifying around her, becoming permanent. And what’s wrong with keeping alive a private connection to love by remembering the paths not taken, the men not engaged with?
Love and Happiness tackles the eternal, essential subjects of love and commitment through one woman’s struggle to sort out her romantic life. How will Jean resolve the emotional chaos raised in her heart by her attractions to her husband, a former flame and a mysterious but tantalizing stranger? Is it possible to love more than one man fully? Set partly in the illogical world of independent movies—a world author Galt Niederhoffer knows well—and in New York City and Los Angeles, Love and Happiness is a rich, intense story of love and attraction, choice and consequence.
Review:
Let me start by saying that I enjoy light romances where I can escape the real world for a while. Due to my desire to escape and enjoy light and happy stories, this was a difficult read for me. The story never really grabbed me and I did not connect with the main character, Jean, at all. Although, I understood that she was confused and dissatisfied with her life, I did not like to reading about her dating another man and drafting emails to an exboyfriend.
A side from the infidelity and betrayal, I did like the way the book was written. There were witty remarks and great metaphors. It also provoked some deep thoughts about relationships and marriage.
I thought the book was realistic and I could see someone actually behaving like Jean. The lengths she went through to find out Benjamin Kraft’s past were like that of a stalker and again, realistic.
There were a lot of descriptions about the making of an independent film that didn’t particularly interest me.
Overall, Love and Happiness touched on many questions, decisions, and consequences that people face in life and was full of drama.
I’d recommend this book to the people that want to read gritty, realistic dramas.
