I Want You to Be Happy
A Novel
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I Want You to Be Happy
Narrated by:
Christopher Bonwell, Gemma Lawrence
Pre-order Now for £15.98
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Bonwell
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Gemma Lawrence
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By:
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Jem Calder
“I Want You to Be Happy is an irresistible novel that asks complex questions about contemporary life and refuses easy answers. I couldn’t stop reading.” —Sally Rooney
“Jem Calder’s I Want You To Be Happy brought me so close to its characters that their world became more real to me than my own. This is a gripping, wise, sad, funny book. It pays such close attention to the textures of life as it's actually lived—in all its in-between moments and unspoken feelings and ambivalence, its blackouts and needy texts and ambushes of tenderness. Jem Calder feels like a particular kind of wizard, sculpting precisely-realized moments of aliveness that feel, at once, startlingly lucid and radiant with mystery. I was utterly enthralled.” —Leslie Jamison
Chuck and Joey meet in a bar. He's in his mid-thirties; she's twelve years younger. He's long abandoned his ambition of becoming a novelist and now works as a copywriter at a big ad agency. 'Lead copywriter,' he corrects himself. Joey lives paycheck to paycheck on her barista wages and privately dreams of making it as a poet. They go back to Chuck's luxury flat—a world away from Joey's cramped house-share, the crumbs in her bed. Soon, Joey's imagining a future between them, and Chuck's moving on from a major change in his recent past. Amazing, how meeting a new person can make you feel so new.
Funny, excruciating, and true, I Want You to Be Happy is a sharp-eyed tale of two people searching for meaning and connection in modern times, missing the mark maybe, but trying.
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