Status
Available
Collection
Publication
Riverhead Books (2019), Edition: Reprint, 304 pages
Description
Pearl's job is to make people happy. Every day, she provides customers with personalized recommendations for greater contentment. She's good at her job, her office manager tells her, successful. But how does one measure an emotion? Meanwhile, there's Pearl's teenage son, Rhett. A sensitive kid who has forged an unconventional path through adolescence, Rhett seems to find greater satisfaction in being unhappy. The very rejection of joy is his own kind of "pursuit of happiness." As his mother, Pearl wants nothing more than to help Rhett--but is it for his sake or for hers? Certainly it would make Pearl happier. Regardless, her son is one person whose emotional life does not fall under the parameters of her job--not as happiness technician, and not as mother, either.-Amazon.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member ValNewHope
Hard work. The story starts out ok, then branches out and loses focus. Uses that device where you have to work to figure out who is narrating various chapters - hasn't that been done to death? Story about Val seems a completely unnecessary diversion. Deeply unsatisfying read.
LibraryThing member sparemethecensor
Great premise. Totally mediocre execution.
LibraryThing member Dianekeenoy
As an audiobook, this was pretty good and it was good to listen to before going to sleep. But, it was hard to tell if this was a series of short stories that were all related or just a loosely constructed novel. I know that
doesn't sound much like an endorsement but there you have it...
doesn't sound much like an endorsement but there you have it...
LibraryThing member Gwendydd
Pearl works for Apricity, a company that makes a machine that can take a sample of a person's DNA, and tell them three things they can do to find happiness. Usually these things are small, like eat oranges, go for walks, get a puppy. The book explores Pearl, her son who has an extreme eating
The characters are all interesting - it's hard for a book this short to explore so many people in depth and make them feel real and give them room to grow and develop. Unfortunately, all of this time exploring characters doesn't really leave much room for a plot. The book kind of feels like a collection of loosely-connected short stories. It is ostensibly exploring what "happiness" means and whether you can really achieve happiness based on the recommendations of a machine, but it never really delivers. The book seems promising, but I ultimately found it to be unsatisfying.
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disorder, her ex-husband who is an artist, his young new girlfriend with a troubled past, and her boss who wants to move up in the company. All of these people use or abuse Apricity machines in different ways.The characters are all interesting - it's hard for a book this short to explore so many people in depth and make them feel real and give them room to grow and develop. Unfortunately, all of this time exploring characters doesn't really leave much room for a plot. The book kind of feels like a collection of loosely-connected short stories. It is ostensibly exploring what "happiness" means and whether you can really achieve happiness based on the recommendations of a machine, but it never really delivers. The book seems promising, but I ultimately found it to be unsatisfying.
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LibraryThing member SocProf9740
What a disappointment considering the great premise. The machine in the title refers to a tiny device (which reminded me of the Theranos gizmo), the Apricity, that offers recommendations towards happiness based on a cheek swab it processes. The very first chapter shows one of the uses of the
Sadly, very quickly, the narrative shifts from those potentialities to the much less interesting inner cogitations of not very interesting characters.
This was a quick and very unsatisfying read.
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devices: employers subjecting their employees to it (to improve productivity), except that one of the recommendations a man gets is to amputate a chunk of his finger (HR already agreed to pay for it!). There was so much that could have been done with such a premise. Some of it is mentioned or hinted at but never really explored. When the recommendations could involve doing harm, they are removed. Could the recommendations be used in a court of law? Can people be coerced to undergo the procedure? Sadly, very quickly, the narrative shifts from those potentialities to the much less interesting inner cogitations of not very interesting characters.
This was a quick and very unsatisfying read.
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LibraryThing member bookwyrmm
Oddly entertaining story about what happiness looks like for this cast of characters.
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2020)
Kirkus Prize (Finalist — Fiction — 2018)
NPR: Books We Love (2018)
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year (Literary Fiction — 2018)
Language
Original language
English