This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

My 2 cents:

You regular readers of my blog out there (hello and thanks for checking in) know I seldom review books I don't enjoy reading. That said, I enjoy reading some more than others.

If you're looking for a book to read this summer that just plain makes you, well, happy, check out This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith. Smith's newest Young Adult novel is set in the spring and summer of 2013 (really) in Henley, Maine. Henley is a small, coastal town where 16-year-old Ellie O'Neill works part-time in an ice cream shop called Sprinkles, and part-time in her mother's Main Street gift shop, where the main attraction is a giant, stuffed red lobster. Ellie's greatest wish is to go to a poetry camp at Harvard University for three weeks at the end of summer, but the $2,000 fee may as well be two million as far as she's concerned.

But, then Ellie gets an e-mail (mistakenly sent to her), and she strikes up a friendship with a virtual stranger, until . . . the summer of 2013 happens. A Hollywood movie is being filmed in small, picturesque Henley, Graham Larkin's coming to town, and Ellie's life is about to change forever.

Length: 404 pages


Worth Your Time? Yes, whatever your age is. 

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