Happy Like This

Written by Ashley Wurzbacher

Narrated by Jennifer Jill Araya

The characters in Happy Like This are smart girls and professional women—social scientists, linguists, speech therapists, plant physiologists, dancers—who search for happiness in roles and relationships that are often unscripted or unconventional. In the midst of their ambivalence about marriage, monogamy, and motherhood and their struggles to accept and love their bodies, they look to other women for solidarity, stability, and validation. Sometimes they find it; sometimes they don’t. Spanning a wide range of distinct perspectives, voices, styles, and settings, the ten shimmering stories in Happy Like This offer deeply felt, often humorous meditations on the complexity of choice and the ambiguity of happiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Sep 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781713587385

Ashley Wurzbacher

Ashley Wurzbacher is the author of How to Care for a Human Girl and the short story collection Happy Like This, which won the 2019 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was named a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, she currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and teaches at the University of Montevallo. Learn more at AshleyWurzbacher.com.

Reviews for Happy Like This

[danieljayfriedman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I would like to thank University of Iowa Press and NetGalley for providing me with an e-copy of Ashley Wurzbacher’s Happy Like This, and National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson for bringing it to my attention by choosing Wurzbacher as a National Book Award 5 Under 35 honoree.Happy Like This is a rare short story collections in which each story — and there are ten if I count correctly — is so engrossing, so well written that upon finishing one I immediately moved on to the next. Wurzbacher’s stories typically deal with young women — in their teens, 20s, maybe early 30s — living in small cities or towns. The women navigate their relations with partners, sisters, and friends. Their relationships feel deeply unsatisfying.Most Happy Like This women work, but their work seems vaguely disappointing. Some are accomplished — a doctoral students, a professor, a soloist ballerina — yet still drifting through their lives, while others just drift.Even the best collections usually contain a mix of excellent, very good, and not-quite-so-good stories. Wurzbacher’s collection is remarkably consistent throughout. I have my favorites — “Like that sickness and health” (don’t bother to investigate the citations) about a doctoral student collecting small sample data on “factitious disorders” in the appropriately nicknamed “waif wing” of a college dormitory, “Fake mermaid” about a woman navigating her sexuality and her relationship, “Happy like that” about the death of a dear friend, “Burden” about a professional dancer struggling in the aftermath of an abortion, and the title story — but even my least favorites and “Like this American moon” and “Ripped” — are compelling. I search to find flaws in Happy Like This, and perhaps my single disappointment is the similarity of the flat emotional tone in some stories, although that same flat emotional tone somehow increases the impact of those stories too.4.5 stars