Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

The Happiness Blueprint by Ally Zetterberg

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emotional hopeful medium-paced

2.75

Finished reading: March 15th 2024


"Did you ever think about the fact that maybe nothing is really odd? It's just one version of it? Anything can fit?"

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and MIRA in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

There was just something about the blurb of The Happiness Blueprint that had me intrigued, and I was even more excited when I discovered that most of the story was going to be set in Sweden. Add the fact that the story was promising a chronic illness/diabetes rep, and I've been looking forward to travel to Sweden and meet both Klara and Alex. I had high hopes for this story, but sadly I do have to say that there were a couple things that bothered me along the way. I'll try to explain my mixed feelings below.

First of all I have to say that I still love the premise of this debut. Using a dual POV structure, The Happiness Blueprint focuses on both Klara and Alex as they struggle with some recent events. Klara has to return to Sweden to temporarily take over her father's construction company while he undergoes treatment for his cancer... Alex's POV on the other hand focuses on grief and depression in the months after losing his brother to a hit-and-run car accident. As a result, this story is a lot darker than expected, but there are still plenty of lighter moments along the way to balance things out a little.

One of the things I loved most was the chronic illness/diabetes rep. You don't see this often enough in stories, and I loved seeing this thorough representation and how the story showed what it was like living with diabetes 1. The autism rep is also well done, and I liked how it was incorporated into the story. BUT. While I could appreciate the grief and depression element, I wasn't a fan of how it was incorporated into the story at all. Alex's POV was SO extremely annoying to read with the incomplete sentences, and it really put a damper on things for me. I suspect this peculiar writing style was used to describe his current mental state, but instead of quirky it mostly made me angry and reluctant to keep reading his chapters. True, you do get used to it after a while, but that didn't mean the frustration went away.

It also took a lot longer than expected for the two characters to even meet. I don't mind a bit of background first, but it just took too long for me... Especially since the whole miscommunication trope was thrown in afterwards, preventing them from truly building a connection. This whole miscommunication is built on something so stupid as well, and I got SO frustrated with both as basically one question could have solved the whole issue. To make things worse, a love triangle is thrown in, and there wasn't even any chemistry with the third party... And the third-act breakup didn't really help either.

As for the characters themselves... There were things I liked in Klara and Alex, while other parts of their characters hugely frustrated me. Also, can we talk about how toxic Klara's relationship is with the rest of her direct family?! And the whole twist involving who was behind the hit-and-run was pretty obvious as well. That said, I did like the whole construction company angle and the role it played in the plot.

As a whole, there were things that worked while other elements didn't quite hit the mark for me. I sadly ended up having mixed thoughts about The Happiness Blueprint... But if you don't think the issues I mentioned will be an issue, this debut will most likely work better for you. 
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