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A review by makealongstorycourt
Happy by Celina Baljeet Basra
dark
lighthearted
sad
fast-paced
3.0
I can see the potential in this one, but the execution wasn’t there for me.
What a dark story hidden between jumbled pages of a character’s mundane inner dialogue. Had the references in some chapters been explained with footnotes, maybe I would’ve grasped the allusions more. As an allusion-heavy novel, I think not being able to pick up on those connections took away from the power that this novel clearly has.
I see it’s been compared to INTERIOR CHINATOWN, and I can see how it’s similar in terms of the voice in the novel. However, I found the humor in this one to be harder to pick up on for the aforementioned reasons. Thus, Happy’s character I didn’t quite love as much as I’d hoped.
What a dark story hidden between jumbled pages of a character’s mundane inner dialogue. Had the references in some chapters been explained with footnotes, maybe I would’ve grasped the allusions more. As an allusion-heavy novel, I think not being able to pick up on those connections took away from the power that this novel clearly has.
I see it’s been compared to INTERIOR CHINATOWN, and I can see how it’s similar in terms of the voice in the novel. However, I found the humor in this one to be harder to pick up on for the aforementioned reasons. Thus, Happy’s character I didn’t quite love as much as I’d hoped.