Review: This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

Format: Hardcover

Source: Library

Publication Date: April 2nd, 2013

Publisher: Poppy

Pages: 416

Goodreads Link: HERE

Buy this book: Amazon

From Goodreads:

If fate sent you an email, would you answer?

When teenage movie star Graham Larkin accidentally sends small town girl Ellie O'Neill an email about his pet pig, the two seventeen-year-olds strike up a witty and unforgettable correspondence, discussing everything under the sun, except for their names or backgrounds.

Then Graham finds out that Ellie's Maine hometown is the perfect location for his latest film, and he decides to take their relationship from online to in-person. But can a star as famous as Graham really start a relationship with an ordinary girl like Ellie? And why does Ellie want to avoid the media's spotlight at all costs?

My Thoughts:

I must admit that since I had read and absolutely LOVED The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight last year, I went into this book expecting it to be absolutely amazing.  Unfortunately, This is What Happy Looks Like didn’t meet my expectations.  For some reason I didn’t connect with the characters as much as I would have liked.

Ellie has been emailing a guy that she only knows as GDL824 for months after he sent her an email by mistake.  Ellie has no idea that she is actually talking to Graham Larkin, the seventeen year old movie star.  Graham also doesn’t know Ellie’s Identity; the only thing he knows about her is that she works in a sweet shop in Henley, Maine.  So when the location for the movie that Graham is scheduled to shoot falls through, he talks the director into shooting in Henley so that he can finally meet Ellie, only she has no idea that he’s coming.

Ellie wasn’t expecting Graham Larkin to come into her life and with her aversion to cameras and being in the paper she isn’t sure what kind of relationship they can have.  I really like that this book was told in alternating POVs, so not only do we understand why Ellie feels the way that she does when it comes to the photographers that follow Graham around but we also see how he really feels about his life as a movie star. 

This is What Happy Looks Like has an interesting story line, although it was a little slow at the beginning it picked up about halfway through.  My favorite part of this book was reading Ellie and Graham’s emails that they had sent each other before they knew who the other person was.  While I enjoyed reading This is What Happy Looks Like, it didn’t ‘wow’ me like I was hoping it would, but that could just be because I had such high hopes for this book.   

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