HAPPY FOR YOU

A woman in tech grapples with doubts about her profession, relationship, and family while working on a project that aims to quantify happiness.

Evelyn Kominsky Kumamoto is 31 when she takes a leave of absence from her philosophy Ph.D. program to work at “the third-most-popular internet company,” where she and two co-workers are asked to develop a prototype for the self-assessment of happiness. From Evelyn’s perspective, everyone around her is better than her at being happy, from her loving boyfriend, Jamie, to her trend-forecasting college best friend, Sharky, to her father, who has his first serious girlfriend since Evelyn’s mother died almost 20 years ago. Evelyn’s mother was White and Jewish, and her father is Japanese, as is Kumiko, his girlfriend, and Evelyn’s biracial identity informs her thoughts and interactions throughout the novel. Evelyn is dogged by ambivalence in every aspect of her life, and her uncertainty raises doubts in her new boss, Dr. Luce, who unfailingly believes in the happiness project. Her vacillations come to a head when Jamie asks her to marry him—she responds, “I don’t know.” While Evelyn is considering Jamie’s proposal, she gets pregnant and, after much thought, decides to keep the baby. Punctuating these events are questions from JOYFULL, the happiness-monitoring app that Evelyn’s team helped create. The app’s questions are suspiciously specific, creating a Greek chorus–like effect that prompts Evelyn to reflect on her relationship with her parents, her career, and what it means, or would mean, for her to be happy. Evelyn’s constant ambivalence about every aspect of her life is frustrating, and she can feel like a muted and flat protagonist. She possesses an acute awareness of racial dynamics, though, and the myriad ways her biracial identity causes friction throughout the novel provide moments of wit and insight. An emotional twist in the later chapters ups the stakes and gives the reader a reason to stay engaged.

A rumination on modern happiness that rewards patient readers in the end.