Monday, May 9, 2016

Guest Book Review: How to Look Happy

By Michelle Drodge

Here I am again, in my worst nightmare, reading a book in the middle of a series. Book #3 of the ‘Unlucky in Love’ series, to be exact. Although you’ll be happy to hear that I didn’t even realize it until the powers of Google told me so, and I was already finished the book. So I might be exaggerating a little.

I blame my trepidation for reading books starting mid-series comes from my extreme FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out. Most of us have it. Aside from keeping in touch with friends and family, it’s why we have all those people we never really hung out with in high school on our social media sites. It’s why we have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. We all have a teeny tiny bit (or a lot) of FOMO in us.

Jen Dawson’s FOMO is just as clear as anyone else’s judging by her social media activity. Although perhaps ‘DrunkBooking’ about your now ex-fiancé and current boss at her design firm might be a bad idea. (Don’t ask me what I ‘SoberBooked’ about my ex-husband once, bad scene). It’s a mistake anyone can make and I certainly can empathize with this one.

Luckily, Jen has her BFF Carrie, who also serves as her voice of reason. With swift post-deleting and damage control happening before Jen even wakes up the next morning, there’s still hope that the whole world didn’t see her angst. Unfortunately, her boss has been so evil lately, she can’t quite tell the difference - that is, until she steals her biggest client right out from under her, who specifically requested Jen’s services.

Still, she tries to move forward, but something just isn’t right at work. Rumours start swirling about the state of the company, and everyone is worried there is more to the story. Enter hunky Todd, the jack-of-all-trades who keeps showing up in the most unexpected places, and who ultimately teaches Jen a few lessons of her own.

There’s a great twist at the end of the book that I would have liked to see what happened next, but hopefully that will make an appearance in another book in the series, since (apparently) the characters in this series are all intertwined.

This book was a light, easy read and I will definitely be going back to read the others (due to said FOMO). I was also surprised to see Stacey was writing for Gemma Halliday publishing (Throwback to Spying in High Heels by Gemma Halliday, my first ever review here on CLC over four years ago!). How to Look Happy was funny, entertaining and I’m looking forward to more from Stacey Wiedower!

Thanks to Stacey Wiedower for the book in exchange for an honest review.

Michelle Drodge is 29 and lives in a small town north of Toronto in Canada with her daughter, who is five going on fifteen. She works in Management Communications during the day, but moonlights as an aspiring writer after her daughter goes to sleep. One day she hopes to see her own book on the shelf alongside her favourite Chick Lit authors!

More by Stacey Wiedower:

1 comment:

Janine said...

Great review. The book sounds really good.