If It Makes You Happy – Book Review

My new next-door neighbor seems to have everything figured out. Small town golden boy? Check. Single dad extraordinaire? Check. Hot baker forearms? I didn’t notice them, I swear.

I, on the other hand, don’t–at all–have anything figured out.

Trust me, I didn’t think taking over my mom’s dream bed and breakfast in Copper Run Vermont was going to be easy. It should be a good place to heal after my divorce. But apparently my scones belong in the garbage with my small talk skills. As pointed out by none other than Cliff.

Cliff is inescapable. He knows exactly what people need–always. His charm, the way he wears flannel, and even his pastries, make not wanting to be friends with Cliff and his daughters pretty hard.

Friends? I can make friends. That’s safe.

Except I’m leaving in three months to pass the inn off to my little sister and get the promotion in Seattle I’ve been working towards.

So ask me why I’m thinking about kissing my hot neighbor.

If you are fans of Gilmore Girls, then you really need to read this book as it has Gilmore Girl vibes in it. Oh yes, the book is almost 513 pages long but trust me and when I say it, I didn’t even realize that the book was more than 500 pages long until I actually finished it.

Michelle, or Shellie is divorced from her uptight doctor husband Allen who cheated on her with a younger woman. Michelle’s mother owned an inn in a small town called Copper Run in Vermont. The inn should belong to Michelle’s younger sister Sara but until Sara completes her art school, Michelle temporary moves to Copper Run for two months to run the inn. She meets her neighbor, Cliff who is a baker and who is charming in every way. Cliff is a single father of two girls, Emily and Brittany. Michelle is a serious girl and she asks Cliff to help her to run the inn. And as they work together Michelle and Cliff start having feelings together.

I enjoyed the whole story even though it was 500 pages long. The story is told in the POVs of Michelle and Cliff, each dealing with their own past. Michelle was uptight and little insecure around people. Cliff on the other hand is the opposite of Michelle–extrovert and a social butterfly. We meet other characters too, and we see Michelle slowly getting used to living in small town even though she knew she had to return back to Seattle, the city life that Michelle is used to. Not to mention, Rocket, Michelle’s dog is the center of the whole story.

This book as fall vibes in it and so the story is set in 1997–from September 1997 to December 1997, the time when the smartphones and social media didn’t exist and through the descriptions, you feel like you are living in the fall of 1997 in the small town called Copper Run in Vermont. We know there is sizzling chemistry between Cliff and Michelle.

I really like the author’s style of writing and I like how she takes us to a journey during the life of 1997 (I was a kid back in 1997 and so some of it did bring fond memories of living without social media and internet). You also feel like you are watching an episode of Gilmore Girls on TV. Not to mention the descriptions of baked goods made my mouth watering.

In the end, we see everyone getting back together as expected in most romance novels.

I really enjoyed this book and wroth five stars.