Books › More happy than not
More happy than not
368 pages
A heartbreaking, speculative exploration of whether erasing our deepest pains is worth losing the truth of who we are.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting on a sweltering Bronx fire escape, caught between the suffocating weight of grief and the dizzying, fragile warmth of first love. It is an intensely vulnerable experience, anchored by a conversational, unpretentious narrative voice that pulls you deep into a fractured headspace. The pacing is steady and intimate, building a deeply grounded contemporary world before slowly tightening the screws with its speculative twist. The atmosphere is heavy with melancholy but pierced by moments of profound tenderness and geeky joy. It is a devastating, tear-jerking read designed for those who want their hearts broken and carefully pieced back together, perfect for fans of emotionally raw stories that ask impossible questions about trauma, memory, and the inescapable truth of who we are.
- Mood
- bittersweet
- heavy
- intimate
- nostalgic
- Tone
- earnest
- vulnerable
- melancholic
- raw
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the weight of memory · internalized homophobia · grief and survival · the illusion of easy fixes · authentic identity
- The writing
- Conversational, deeply internal, and unpretentiously raw, capturing the authentic voice of a teenager navigating profound trauma.
- The arc
- Begins in a fog of lingering grief and tentative hope, swells into the dizzying warmth of first love, and shatters into a devastating but ultimately healing confrontation with the truth.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave emotionally devastating coming-of-age stories that tackle heavy themes of identity and mental health with a speculative edge.
Content notes
- suicide
- homophobia
- depression
- self-harm
- grief
About the book
When it first gets announced, the Leteo Institute's memory-alteration procedure seems too good to be true to Aaron Soto-miracle cure-alls don't tend to pop up in the Bronx projects. Aaron can't forget how he's grown up poor, how his friends all seem to shrug him off, and how his father committed suicide in their one bedroom apartment. He has the support of his patient girlfriend, if not necessarily his distant brother and overworked mother, but it's not enough. Then Thomas shows up. He doesn't mind Aaron's obsession over the Scorpius Hawthorne books and has a sweet movie set-up on his roof. There are nicknames. Aaron's not only able to be himself, but happiness feels easy with Thomas. The love Aaron discovers may cost him what's left of his life, but since Aaron can't suddenly stop being gay Leteo may be the only way out.
Description from Open Library.
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