Ahoy there mateys!  The silly but awesome cover and the author is what led me to try this one.  A virus is taking over the world and the people who catch it get utter contentment.  This happiness leads to unusual circumstances.  For example, the richest man in the world gives away his fortune.  But there are those in power who don't want to catch the virus and lose control.  What is the proper path forward for Earth?

There are four main characters in the novel.  Mariel Murdoch is a homeless teen who lives with her mother in her car.  She seems to be immune to the virus.  Rón Escobedo is the favored son of one of the world’s wealthiest men but is lonely and feels like he has no purpose outside of his father's plans for him.  Dame Glynis Havilland is an elderly adult who needs someone to run her empire and continue the quest for a cure to the virus.  Margot Willmon-Wu is an intelligent but ruthless 19-year-old who inherits this empire.  I found the teens to be caricatures.  Dame Glynis was my favorite because of her transformation after catching the virus.

Once again the set-up was the better part of the novel.  I stopped reading at the 45% mark.  Rón ends up becoming a super spreader with no real care about how 1 in 25 people die.  While the concept of people people happy from a virus was interesting at first, the consequences of this happiness causes a lot of scary problems.  For example, a boat overturns and an entire group is compelled to jump into the water to save them and many die because of the current or not being able to swim.  So the virus is killing more people then Covid, is taking away their autonomy, and has horrible irreversible side effects.

Full disclosure, is that I was recently diagnosed with Long Covid and my autonomy is actually being taking away due to the side effects I am experiencing.  So when the happy people began to actually die and be controlled like infected zombie ants, I just couldn't bring myself to read more of this book and actually started to have more PTSD symptoms.  What started out as silly turned into a kind of offensive read for me based on my personal circumstances.  No more for me.  I cannot even recommend this book.  Arrrr!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.