Title: Happy and you know it

Author: Laura Hankin

Type: Fiction

Pages: 384

Published: 2020

Laura Hankin’s debut is a quick read, a novel that could be categorized as a beach book. Its the type of book you can read all day until you finish it.

Summary:
After Claire is fired from her band, she’s trying to pay her way through New York City life, and a gig as a playgroup musician will have to do. The mothers in the group are wealthy and wellness-obsessed, leading lives far more polished than the existence Claire is eking out. But Claire finds herself drawn to them anyway. The women incorporate Claire into their lives, and she welcomes the inclusion.

When one of the women’s husbands gets sick and is forced to work from home, he pushes the women to hold their playgroup elsewhere. Claire recognizes his belief that his activities are more important than his wife’s.

The book reveals some level of patriarchy, where we see it explained in Claire’s memory of her hometown where the church made children believe they were special and deserved everything but the husbands will always be the boss regardless of your rank at work or in society, men rule and as a woman you follow.

This is apparent in the woman whose husband falls ill. This book explores themes of feminism, expectations places on mothers and women, the never changing mentality of society’s view of women.  The book shows how women in the play group continue to work on themselves, their relationships with their friends while working on their insecurities.

This was an interesting debut by Hankin, beautifully written.