A review by coralinejones
A Good Happy Girl by Marissa Higgins

2.0

I've seen two reviews that fully capture how I feel about this novel. With credit, I've put them below. In my own words, the only thing I liked about this, in the vein of TikTok, was the "spice". Don't think this book's intention was for "erotica" in any capacity, but the sex was the only interesting aspect of this book for me. Everything else please see below:

From Luce (Via: GoodReads)

"it's official, i am feeling a gross-grimey girl fiction fatigue. you know the drill by now: she's messed up, has daddy or mommy issues, doesn't know how to wash, doesn't want to wash, wants to be more or less treated like a dog by her dubious sex partners because of guilt, trauma, ennui, neglect. bodies are abject, bodily fluids abound, our main character thinks about outlandish things because she's just so messed up and weird, and her malaise is all consuming, warping her worldview and self-perception. chuck in some supposedly provocative scenes that are actually there for shock value and ta-da. you have on your hands a Sad Girl book. the author here switches things up by making the mc a lesbian (usually they are in the realms of heterosexuality) and becoming involved with a married couple who in very Mona Awad fashion seem interchangeable. but at the end of the day this dynamic, of a single/lonely woman becoming involved with an older/more affluent couple is uninspired."

From Zedohee (Via: StoryGraph)

"derivative. aims for frank depravity and a sort of warped, earnest grit but it's too manufactured and hyper stylized to convince. instead it comes off more than a little pat like it's the kind of book that people will describe as 'raw' but i don't buy it, not when i can see the strings. in books about emotionally inept, grimey white girls are a dime a dozen and only about 1/4 are actually saying anything of substance. like imma need more than excessive descriptions of sex and bodily fluids to hold my interest."