Are You Happy Now

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

If the events of 2020 taught us anything, it’s that apocalyptic events can be much more quiet and insidious than the fire and brimstone we’re primed to expect. This is the case in best-selling author Hanna Jameson’s fifth novel, Are You Happy Now, a love story that plays out in the ominous shadow of a strange new pandemic sweeping across the globe. The crisis unfolds through the eyes of Emory, Yun, Andrew and Fin, guests at a wedding reception which is disrupted when a friend of the bride sits down mid-celebration and refuses to get up, lashing out violently at anyone who tries to interfere. Two weeks later, as reports of new cases of the same catatonic affliction begin to multiply in their thousands, the insensate sufferers begin to die. Jameson sketches an instantly familiar image of a population maintaining the illusion of normality while living in fear of an invisible threat, sandwiching the romance between claustrophobic layers of palpable anxiety and uncertainty. Are You Happy Now probes the kind of passive malaise that lingers in the corners of the mind and bestows it with a malignant power, prompting practical and philosophical questions about the conditions we accept and the choices we make. It makes for a powerful, but unsettling read.