Happiness Forever by Adelaide Faith is a novel to read if you've ever felt like you're not able to do life properly or as well as other people. The only thing I think could maybe have worked better is perhaps if it had been in first person instead of third.

I was a bit disappointed by this one. It positions itself as a story of an unhinged queer obsession but in reality it’s just an account of relatively straightforward therapy sessions.

The main character Sylvie is obsessed with her therapist. She lives alone with her brain damaged dog in a seaside town and works as a vet tech. She’s been in some very unhealthy and controlling relationships and is working to figure out who she is in her 30s.

I loved Big Swiss so I was hoping it would be similar to that, but it unfortunately didn’t really deliver on the obsession or weirdness, and it wasn’t really gay, despite being a story of same-sex obsession.

It reminded me more so of Emily Austin’s writing in terms of being a very interior story of a deeply neurotic individual.

I think what really bugged me beyond the fact that nothing really happened is that all of Sylvie’s relationships seem to exist to talk about her therapist. So she’s in therapy, thinking about therapy, and then she meets her friends and only talks about therapy. It gets really repetitive, and we don’t get to actually know anything about her friends because the relationship is completely one sided.

The writing itself was fine, and I’m sure some people will really resonate with it, but it just wasn’t for me.

I must admit it was the dog on the cover of this book that made me request to review it.
It was an ok read for me.
Thanks for the opportunity to read & review it.

Happiness Forever follows Sylvie who loves being in therapy because she is in love with her therapist. Sylvie knows she has an obsession but isn’t sure if it’s transference. Sylvie is a veterinary nurse who has a brain damaged dog called Curtains. Her world begins to open up though when she makes a new friend called Chloe.

This was okay. The story wasn’t really for me as I did find the whole thing to be a bit weird. I think this novel is perfect for people that enjoy character driven novels. This was exclusively about Sylvie and her experience in life. I’m not sure how true to life the therapy part was especially when Sylvie stated she was in love with her therapist. Overall, this was fine and I would recommend it for fans of short novels who like following one character.