With the verve and bite of Ottessa Moshfegh and the barbed charm of Nancy Mitford, this stunning debut about a young ingénue in the big city is “as refreshing as gin fizz . . . a wild careening joyride through a hot sultry summer in New York” (Rachel Syme, The New Yorker). Everyone kept asking us what we were doing in New York, what we were working on, and what our general story was. When Gala told them we were doing ‘absolutely nothing,’ she was met with raised eyebrows. They would add, ‘Do you have internships at magazines?’ No one seemed to understand what Gala was saying, and I thought perhaps she wasn’t enunciating to their liking. I know she sometimes warbles. So I repeated emphatically, ‘Nothing! Nothing at all!’ After that, people were not so interested in telling us what they did.” Not until her annual meltdown, when an accident means she really needs the friends who know her best, is it brought home to her that, in her avoidance of those who knew them as a couple, she has rejected family, her closest friend, and her goddaughter, never considering how hurtful her repeated evasions would be. These are now Vast Genre! Shall we endeavor to compare every single book about, say, Dysfunctional Family, or War? Stylish and/or often women-identifying people have been aiming to live it up in NYC since the beginning of time, and will hopefully continue to be able to do so, and thus culture reflects this. It is pointless and minimizing - a fool’s errand, really - to fruitlessly bundle together most recent cultural artifacts making any reference to this.

Despite the jovial tone of Happy Hour, there are some poignant themes that underscore this good-natured tale. From grief, loss, love, protection, identity, loneliness, trust, addiction, violence, life decisions and selfishness, this is a very honest contemporary narrative. With a strong emphasis placed on loved ones, Happy Hour leaves much food for thought in the life department. With the added bonus of some gen To be sure, the magic to this story are the characters which inhabit within. Franny Calderwood is a vibrant soul. She is equal parts eccentric and flamboyant, curmudgeon and sweetheart. She enjoys her own company, a little tipple (or two) with dinner, taking the dogs for a walk along the beach and, painting. Franny often has a glass of bubbly in one hand and a paint brush in the other. Since Frank’s passing though she has kept to herself, with the exception of her two dogs, Whisky and Soda as her only other companions.Profound … At their core, books are about the beautiful, but here we have a book where our narrator is not only an observer of beauty but in possession of that beauty too.” A glitzy coming-of-age saga about two friends navigating the singular experience of getting by in New York City.” But here I am AGAIN talking about this book like its sole merit is its meaningful literary heritage! The other thing is just that I enjoyed it, and the writing, so damn much! I’ve put some random quotes at the end of this so that you can get an idea of the Humour and the Tone.

Those who knew Frank invariably react to her with sorrow, pitying looks and melodramatic sighs, something that threatens to undo her, something she wants to avoid. Wayne at the liquor store, though, she appreciates: “He’d arrived in the bottle shop a year after Frank’s death, so he never asked about her home life or ‘how she was coping’. He saw her as an entity unto herself, not the remaining half of a once fine pair.” The taller one gestured towards me before sitting down, asking me, ‘Are you from Mauritius?’ I said, ‘No, but I can spell it.’”Also, Isa, like Lorelei Lee, is very self-aware and meta about what she is doing and the life she is living. If the many Gentlemen who routinely insist on comparing one’s appearance to that of Pocahontas can pay for a round of French 75s, what is to be gained by not availing oneself of this? This is exactly my type of book: a wry, Moshfeghian female protagonist in her 20s, navigating her way through a hedonistic, cosmopolitan New York City summer with a few dollars to her name. So obviously it gets five stars. If you read and liked: My Year of Rest and Relaxation, The Bell Jar or Sweetbitter you would probably like this - in fact you might like it more! Zero plot, just vibes. Languid, warm, luxurious and seethingly sharp.

Brief and flighty ... Granados paints New York with all of the silky glamour it deserves Han Clark, Lunate Rage is funny because letting it out leaves you feeling more powerless than you were to start with. as isa and gala are both undocumented and therefore can’t get a typical desk job, much of the novel follows them hustling for money to make their rent and fund their nightlife escapades. consequently, since both women don’t have much money, the book provides some exploration into beauty as currency – which isa and gala utilise as a way to gain social capital, oftentimes manipulating men who turn out to already be playing mind games of their own. Marlowe Granados’s Happy Hour is as refreshing as a gin fizz. It is a wild careening joyride through a hot sultry summer in New York in 2013, and it evokes that time with such sparkling specificity that you can feel the heat coming off the pavement. If you are looking for romance, ambition, glamour, and a story about what it means to be young and striving in the city, this is your song of the summer.”

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Refreshing and wry in equal measure, Happy Hour is an intoxicating novel of youth well spent. Isa Epley is all of twenty-one years old, and already wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. She arrives in New York City for a summer of adventure with her best friend, one newly blond Gala Novak. They have little money, but that’s hardly going to stop them from having a good time. Happy Hour refuses to separate the frivolous and the adventurous ... as refreshing as the first sip of a martini on a searing summer’s night. Eloise Hendy, Elephant In her diary, Isa describes a sweltering summer in the glittering city. By day, the girls sell clothes in a market stall, pinching pennies for their Bed-Stuy sublet and bodega lunches. By night, they weave from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side to the Hamptons among a rotating cast of celebrities, artists, Internet entrepreneurs, stuffy intellectuals, and bad-mannered grifters. Money runs ever tighter and the strain tests their friendship as they try to convert their social capital into something more lasting than their precarious gigs as au pairs, nightclub hostesses, paid audience members, and aspiring foot fetish models. Through it all, Isa’s bold, beguiling voice captures the precise thrill of cultivating a life of glamour and intrigue as she juggles paying her dues with skipping out on the bill. Is it wrong to think of pain as quanitifiable? If it is not in quantities, how can we digest it? How does it move through our bodies without us knowing its size?

This is a lovely read and exactly what I needed when feeling overwhelmed by life and worrying that I wasn’t living up to my own and others’ expectations. A Must-Read according to Forbes, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Next Big Idea Club, Behavioral Scientist, and more Josh, Dee and Sallyanne are great as well and again, Byron has given us characters who could easily be clichés but instead they’re strong and vivid, but at the same time, subtle.Franny Calderwood is sixty-five, widowed and retired and she’s quite the character. Since her husband was killed tragically three years earlier she has become a recluse, she’s rude at times and lives a solitary life separating herself from the previous life she had. She doesn’t want social interactions and prefers to chat to photographs of her dead husband Frank she has placed throughout her home. Refreshing and wry in equal measure, Happy Hour is an intoxicating novel of youth well spent. Isa Epley is all of twenty-one years old, and already wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. After a sojourn across the pond, she arrives in New York City for a summer of adventure with her best friend, one newly blond Gala Novak. They have little money, but that’s hardly going to stop them from having a good time. With the verve and bite of Ottessa Moshfegh and the barbed charm of Nancy Mitford, this stunning debut about a young ingénue in the big city is “as refreshing as gin fizz . . . a wild careening joyride through a hot sultry summer in New York” (Rachel Syme, The New Yorker ). we were only holding on to each other for the sake of a shared history. What else bonded us? A general willingness to not discuss things. To not pry, to know that to ask would hurt each other, so sometimes skimming the surface is the best thing a friend can do. The voice is authentic, barbed, a delicate balance between striking observations about the world (and its expectations for her) and the naïveté you must possess to think you can make it in NYC with only a few dollars to your name.