A Season of Perfect Happiness

Thank you NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Where would you go if you could have the chance for a new beginning?  A place where whatever sins were in your past didn’t make people cringe or look at you with pity when they see you on the street.  How would you choose that place?  When Claire needed that fresh start, she chose Wisconsin because of its shape on the map.  A thousand miles from her family and the town she grew up in, she’s created a quiet life, putting the tragedy of the last decade behind her.  She even begins to open herself up to others – first a neighbor, then a new beau and his family.  She’s very careful to share bits, but never the full story of her past.  But when a strange coincidence brings someone from her past to town, the past is suddenly at risk of destroying Claire’s Season of Perfect Happiness.

Maribeth Fischer is back with such a striking tale of hope, grief, and trauma in A Season of Perfect Happiness.  Set in locations dear to her both in Delaware and Wisconsin, Fischer’s characters feel like they could be people we know – neighbors or even family.  Her ability to draw you in, yet keep you guessing, throughout the book is outstanding and found me more than once unable to put this book down.  Fischer was not afraid to tackle big subjects like mental health and postpartum depression, as well as parenting children of special needs and coparenting in a blended family.  This is a book about the lasting trauma the past can leave us with and how one mistake, one regrettable action can upend the world.

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I give A Season of Perfect Happiness 5 out of 5 stars.  If you have followed along here for very long, you’ll see that mental health and honest portrayals of it in literature are very important to me.  I appreciate the way Fischer tackled both the root cause of the mental health crisis and the honest view at what treatment looked like both in terms of length and activity for Clarie’s character.  I also appreciate the way Fischer worked in the mental health struggles for some of those around Clarie, too – the guilt and tiredness of parenting a special needs child and the struggle to bond with him.  I did struggle with the ending of this book.  Without giving too much away, it felt as though a small section had been removed towards the end or the ending may have been altered at some point – the storyline just needed to be explored a tiny bit more to fit with the cadence and development done throughout the remainder of the novel.

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If you liked Liane Moriarty’s Apples Never Fall or Rachel Hawkins’ The Heiress, you will love this book.  Part mystery, part romance, part self-discovery, this novel appealed to so many of the genres I appreciate!  With themes of mental health struggles and childhood trauma, this may not be the best book for all readers and should be directed to more mature audiences over 16.  This would make a phenomenal book club choice or even a girlfriend read-along book – I found myself having to read sections of it to my husband just so I could discuss it with him!

I initially chose A Season of Perfect Happiness because of the cover.  With a beautiful sunset, string lights, and a gorgeous backyard setting, the cover drew my eye immediately.  I was excited to read the description of the book though and to connect with the storyline before even reading one word, and I think you will be, too.

A Season of Perfect Happiness releases on August 20^th, but you can preorder your copy today on our Bookshop.org page.

 

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What I’m Reading

• Current print book: America’s Founding Women, Cassandra Good
• Current audio book: Beach Read, Emily Henry
• Book I’m most looking forward to: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Fredrik Backman