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pucksandpaperbacks 's review for:
This Is What Happy Looks Like
by Jennifer E. Smith
The way I feel about this book is a lot similar to my feelings toward [book:The Geography of You and Me|18295852]. I felt like Ellie was a lot like Lucy, where she got mad at Graham for her own personal reasons and just tried to push him out of her life without any explanation. Then, she went back to him?
I really think I had high expectations for this book having it be about an email anon relationship, however it was super short and I wished we got to see their relationship through emails progress instead of "3 months later". I didn't feel the email aspect per say and I really wanted the book to be centered around finding out who Graham was rather than how quickly we're introduced to him.
I guess the book fell short for me because of my own personal preferences especially how the chapters aren't split in dual POV and the chapters telling you which character we'll be reading from. Jennifer E Smith writes in third person which really throws me off and I was very confused to which character we were reading from, having their names helped but I did feel confused and just wished I had the first person.
However, I really enjoyed Graham toward the end of the book and I feel I knew his personality better the last 20 pages !?! I wanted more of Graham's wit and sweet side throughout the whole story.
Last, I did enjoy the way family is introduced between the two characters, a lot like [book:The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight|10798416] where Hadley and Oliver both have family storylines that aren't the best, but are meaningful to the story and characters.
I really did find myself dragging through the book, I almost DNFed at page 340 because I was so done with it. But, the ending really helped me and I just wish the book was more like that!
I recommend this for a summer read, I read it in the Winter but I still liked the Fourth of July scenes and the hot summer days!