| Title | : | Happy Again (This Is What Happy Looks Like, #1.5) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0316305650 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780316305655 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | ebook |
| Number of Pages | : | 84 |
| Publication | : | First published April 14, 2015 |
In this sequel novella to This Is What Happy Looks Like, Jennifer E. Smith revisits two beloved characters to tell the story of one magical night in Manhattan. When Ellie and Graham come face to face once more, can they get past the months of silence and the hurt feelings to find their happily-ever-after again?
Happy Again (This Is What Happy Looks Like, #1.5) Reviews
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I COULD PROBABLY READ ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS 5EVER I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.
SQUEALING!
Well I just reread this the day after reading it the first time and I'm bumping it up to a 5 because I just LOVE IT. -
ASDFGHJKL.
Spoiler: Graham Larkin said he's coming to Manila!!!! LOL -
I said before that I don't care if this is only a novella as long as I get more Ellie and Graham but now I take that back. I want and need more cute in my life. I just need more!!!
Ugh. Four stars because so much cute. <3
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Fuck yes! I thought This Is What Happy Looks Like was open-ended with many unresolved issues so thank God for this sequel. -
Ahhhhhhh I love Graham Larkin! I need this book!!! I'm scared to read this. Gimme
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Guys, I have hearts in my eyes. I really, really do. <3 <3 <3. Okay, that's all.
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When This Is What Happy Looks Like ends, Ellie and Graham are in a happy place, but there definitely seem to be problems in their future if they want to keep their relationship strong. He is a movie star. She is a relatively ordinary high school senior. Their worlds are so very different. It is going to be a complicated relationship, no matter how wonderful things are as that novel ends. But ... the great thing about the way that that story ended was that things were open enough that I could make up my own ideas about how things turn out between them. I could imagine them heading off into the sunset and their very own Happily Ever After, and it would be okay because it was my imagination fueling the perfection.
But then I found out that Jennifer E. Smith decided to revisit this couple and see what happens next.
I was sooooo excited to hear about this little novella ... but also a bit nervous. After all, I had already made up my own Happily Ever After for Graham and Ellie. I didn't want to hear that things didn't go so smoothly. There was a huge potential that this story could have ruined all the good feelings I had after finishing This is What Happy Looks Like.
I'm happy to say that I finished Happy Again even more smitten with this couple. This was a sweet, sweet extended epilogue to their story, and I liked it a lot. It is a quick read. It only took about an hour to complete. But in that short story a lot happens, and many of the loose ends, the 'what ifs' of the main novel are tied up. It was a satisfying way to finish out the story of this unlikely couple.
The hardest part of reading this story was reading about how Graham and Ellie drifted apart. This novella takes place more than a year after the events of the main novel, and in that time Ellie and Graham have been slowly disengaging from one another as their emails become less personal and finally non-existent. While the main novel has a third person narration that alternates between Ellie and Graham's points of view, this one is entirely told from Ellie's POV. Even though we aren't in Graham's head, through conversation and well written descriptive narration it is clear how he feels. The first half of the novella is awkward, and that is entirely because Ellie is awkward. She is awkward at Harvard, both in class and with her friends, and she is painfully awkward when she accidentally walks up on the premier of Graham's movie on a weekend trip to New York. So many times I wanted to yell at her to get a spine and just talk to the guy. After all, when I last left these two they seemed like they were in a wonderful relationship. This awkwardness seemed ridiculous to me. That made the first half of the story hard to read.
But ... hooray for Harry, Graham's agent. When he stepped forward to get Ellie into the theater with her friends and then told Graham that she was there, despite Ellie's wish to remain anonymous, the story took off. When Graham shows up and encourages Ellie to be bold the magic of the first book finally shows up in this story. I LOVED the conversation Graham and Ellie had as they walked away from the theater for a short night on the town. As they opened up about their loneliness, their awkwardness, and their insecurities they finally became themselves again, and that is what I loved most about the original novel. These two on paper seem like an unlikely and mismatched couple. It doesn't make sense for them to be together, and that is the logic that keeps Ellie from believing that she could ever be with someone like Graham. But it is when the two of them are together that they truly feel like who they are. I love that, and I love how this novella puts all the issues and the insecurities on the table and allows these two to make a conscious decision to be bold and strong and to live for what they truly want in their lives.
This is a super short story, and I would love to know lots more about these two people, but I thought that the epilogue was PERFECT. I brought everything back to the very beginning, and it was super satisfying. I loved it! Thank you, Jennifer E. Smith, for this little gift for all the fans of This is What Happy Looks Like! Four stars! -
Happy Again is a companion novella to This is What Happy Looks Like. This novella takes place a little over a year after the end of the first book and revisits the relationship between Ellie and Graham and what had taken place since the end of This is What Happy Looks Like.
Ellie is now in college at Harvard and still finds herself withdrawn and afraid of taking chances. Graham is still a huge movie star with all that comes along with that life style. The two had found themselves drifting apart after Graham had returned to Hollywood but now after a sudden trip to New York with some friends Ellie finds herself running into Graham.
While I still enjoy the writing and the story of Ellie and Graham I have to say I wasn't quite sure how I completely felt after reading this novella. The couple's ending was left a bit up in the air at the end of the first book but one could take it that they may have had their happily ever after but we find that wasn't the case in the novella.
At the end of this one I'm a bit more iffy on how I can take the ending as compared to the first book. It seemed that there were still some of the same issues in the relationship and we just repeated the whole scenario again in this shorter version of their story.
Overall, I decided to give this installment 3.5 stars. Still great writing but I'm not too sure of the point of the addition of this novella to the story since it seemed a bit of a repeat.
For more reviews please visit
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I enjoyed this novella. Since I liked the characters of Ellie and Graham a lot from the first book, it was great to read a follow-up story about them!
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3.5
eh that was cute.
I liked it better than the previous book.
In this one, Ellie and Graham had much more chemistry and I could actually believe they are in love.
If you've read This is What Happy Looks Like, they I definitely recommend continuing with this one. It's only 79 pages, so you might as well :) -
Such a cute short story. I really loved seeing Graham Larkin and Ellie together again. All I have to say is they better have their happy ending because this was heartbreaking to read after This Is What Happy Looks Like ):
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Can it get even more far-fatched and sticky sweet? Unfortunately yes.
This short novella was so unnecessary. A third recap of the first book, a third ridiculous dialogue and pining between Graham & Ellie and a third Ellie babbling in her head about her insecurities. Was she in the original book also that bitchy and prejudiced? As if everybody in Harvard is rich and snobbish. Poor her.
Why does this short sequel even exist? I mean in the end these two are kind of exactly at the same place as in the last book... -
“We already said everything last night. I think now it’s just good-bye.” He breathed out, ruffling her red hair. “I’m not sure I’m quite finished saying hello yet,”
"What happy looks like?" ":)"
Another swoon worthy story from Jennifer Smith. It was the right kind of sweet and not too cheesy. -
So happy I did read this since I don't really read novellas that often. It's been a while since I've read 'This Is What Happy Looks Like' but I was right back to loving Graham and Ellie. Wish this was longer though but hey it's a novella so yeah. Loved this !
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Happy Again by Jennifer E. Smith is the short novella that follows the two main characters, Ellie and Graham from the novel This is What Happy Looks Like. It takes place sometime after the events in the novel. A year has passed since the two main characters have promised to stay in contact with each other and it seems that both Ellie and Graham have been moving forward with their lives. Ellie has started college and Graham has been trying to stay out of the magazines while still making movies. When both characters find themselves in Manhattan at the same exact time fate intervenes and asks the question will Graham and Ellie finally be able to have a happily ever after or has too much time passed for them to be able to save what they once had?
I had high hopes for this novella. I was a really huge fan of the novel This is What Happy Looks Like, but I felt that it was too open ended for my taste. This solved that problem and blew it right out of the water! I loved seeing both Ellie and Graham at new stages of their lives, I loved seeing how they felt about each other with time passing and without seeing each other for a little while, and more importantly I loved seeing what happened when once again they came face to face. There was something about this novella that was beautiful for what it was, it felt like the concluding chapter in Ellie and Graham’s story. I loved that Smith kept the feel of the novel in the novella and that it felt like I was visiting an old friend while reading about what both main characters had been up to while I was away. The character development of both Ellie and Graham was incredible and I wasn’t left wanting more, I left this novella more than satisfied.
Smith gave me everything that I wanted as a reader and more for both Ellie and Graham, I couldn’t be happier with the ending of Graham and Ellie’s story. I recommend this novella for anyone who has read This is What Happy Looks Like, even if you weren’t disappointed with the end of the novel, this is a wonderful addition to the story of Ellie and Graham. -
a bit heart-wrenching...
but adorable anyway..
So the setting has moved to New York.
I was wondering at first what happened between Graham and Ellie after
This is What Happy Looks Like and I was a bit shocked that they stopped getting in touch. But I appreciated that part because somehow the author tried to make relationships (long distance and of people living opposite sides) more realistic. Though, the ending is a bit vague, overall, this was a good conclusion. -
Short and sweet and adorable. Pretty realistic after what happened in WHLL. I really like the fact that Graham has a pet pig. So cute!
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I loved this short story. But I want more, I need more. This is not enough.
Honestly, how does this?
It's torture! -
“And I want to be able to stand in front of just one person and say the thing I want to say.”
A movie star and a normal girl? Long distance relationships are really hard. Plus, insecurities. That's Ellie's problem in this story. Girl, stop worrying!!! Stop the drama!!! Graham loves you, okay?! Hahaha. I love how fate brought them back together. Such a cute story. I want moreeeee
OOOOHHHH THE FACT THAT GRAHAM LARKIN IS COMING TO MANILA. *patiently waits* I CAN'T HANDLE HIS CUTENESS I LOVE HIM -
In this sequel novella to This Is What Happy Looks Like, Jennifer E. Smith revisits two beloved characters to tell the story of one magical night in Manhattan. When Ellie and Graham come face to face once more, can they get past the months of silence and the hurt feelings to find their happily-ever-after again?
I MEAN, REALLY, A QUESTION MARK "?" ?
OH MY GOODNESS, THIS SOUNDS LIKE A NOT-SO-HAPPY-ENDING. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! -
I told myself I'll be satisfied just to see what happened to Graham and Ellie after This is What Happy Looks Like. But how can I be satisfied after I read this short novella. It's too much yet too short (if that even make sense). I wanted to read more about them; Ellie's college life, Graham's new movie. I want to know if they make their relationship work despite their busy schedules.
I wanted a sequel but I know I can't always have what I want. Anyway, great novella. -
*sigh* that was really cute ^.^ that was cute in one of the highest levels. I wish I could have more but I know this is already "more". I loved it, thanks Jennifer E. Smith , Graham and Ellie. Oh yeah and their banter was hilarious XD
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I WILL WRITE A FULL REVIEW ABOUT THIS MINI SEQUEL WITH GIFS AND STUFF BECAUSE IT DESERVES TO HAVE ONE AHHHH THIS BOOK! <3
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Short but sweet. I missed Graham so much. He taught Wilbur a new trick! How adorable :)
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"I want to be happy again." -Ellie O'Neill
Well, I am happy again!!! After that creepy feeling I got from my last read, I'm glad I followed it with this one. Now, the creeps are out of my system! This is a hard to put down book, err story, which makes the length of it good because I really don't want to put it down the same way I don't want my arms and eyes to get knackered.
The first few chapters reminded me of the first book which is 'This is What Happy Looks Like' which I loved, loved, loved! Yes, and this makes me want to read that again, to go back to when Ellie and Graham started learning about each other, how it happened. It's all coming back to me when Ellie was remembering their first meeting, but still in a blur.
Despite its short length, the story is brilliant! It'll give you more emotions than just happy. I was a bit hopeless when Graham and Ellie actually stopped communicating with each other. I thought all their chances were gone together with their feelings. I was very disappointed when Graham called Ellie a stranger. I thought the sparks were gone.But I'm in joy that Mr. Harry Style exist! Okay, not really Harry Style. It's Harry the manager. And, I'm just glad i'm wrong with my thoughts (like always?)
. . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . .. .
The story shows how different it is when you fall in love with a movie star, not to mention a really cute, hot, and popular movie star. It would be a lot easier when the one you love is an ordinary person. Just like what Quinn, Ellie's bff said: 'It's admittedly a little easier when your boyfriend sits behind you in Physics.' (or in my case, so much more easier if I sit behind him and he's really good in Physics. 'Cause I'm so not!). Okay, cheating is not really my type but as they said, 'It's better to cheat than to repeat.' Not that I do agree. Okay, we're diverting from the story.
As I was saying it's really different to fall in love with a brightly shining star. The risks are too much to take when you're the type of person who hates the crowd or the public attention and the long distance relationship. But what could you do if your heart takes you in that direction? It's a hard bet but if the risks are worth it, that there's really a chance for happiness, then why not take it? Right, Ellie and Graham? Go for it!!!
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I really like Ms.
Jennifer E. Smith way of writing. She uses third person's pov in a way that makes you feel it so real. Good job Ms. Jennifer E. Smith! I'm looking forward to reading more of your works! :)))
Rating: 5 HAPPY DANCING STARS!
I'm just so happy! I'm really in love with the story. Ellie and Graham were such cute characters. The story was sweet, adorable and funny. I thought, the ending will leave us hanging about what was Ellie's question to Graham. But the epilogue give us the satisfaction. So that makes the story perfect. :))
and don't forget,
Graham Larkin is flying to Manila!!! - xoxo Gossipgirl
(Yes, I'm crazy). . . want a game face?
P.S.: This what Happy really looks like.
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I gave this 2.5 stars because it wasn't great and it wasn't bad. I was mildly interested in what was happening in this book. I liked that this had a more realistic vibe than the 1st book. It made sense that Graham and Ellie would drift apart as they both got caught up in their own life (even though it was vaguely disappointing). I also liked how they came together again and how they both decided that they must change their life and do what they want to find that feeling of happiness again. I think that this having only 84 pages helped the execution of the plotline. If this was a full-length novel, it would feel dragged out and annoying. However, the length and pacing were perfect in this.
Things that you might want to know (WARNING: Spoilers below)
Was there a happy/satisfying ending?
Love triangle? Cheating? Angst level?
Tears-worthy?
What age level would be appropriate? -
I'm gonna try to keep this short.
At the end of the first book, Ellie and Graham went back to their lives with a promise to keep in contact. But slowly, they drifted apart and now, after a year, they meet again. And we'll see whether this rekindles their relationship.
Now if you're read my review of the first book, you must know that my major issue with it was that Ellie wasn't an active participant in the relationship. She never took incentive, took the first step, or even started a conversation. It was always Graham who had to keep things going.
In this novella, I was hoping that would change. That was the sole purpose of the novella for me. But nothing changed with her. There was this thing near the end, which I don't think counted. And Graham and Ellie are right where they were at the end of the first book. Which proves this book to be absolutely pointless.
The only positives are that there was nothing wrong with the writing and that Graham was still adorable. But I came out feeling that he deserves much better. That shouldn't have happened.
This was a short read so you can read it if you want. But it doesn't contribute to the story so there's not much point behind reading it. -
It's been a while since I last read This Is What Happy Looks Like and I've been itching to get my hands on Happy Again, because... well, sometimes you want fluff, and happy endings, and chessy romance novels. Jennifer E. Smith is my go-to author when I'm in that mood, but this one just didn't deliver for me. I fell in love with the characters Graham and Ellie, so of course I wanted to see their happily ever after sealed up with a bow, but instead I got more of a wide open ending. On top of that, none of the loose strings in TIWHLL were tied up in this novella, and hello, I need some closure. Ugh.
Okay, so this wasn't bad. It wasn't all that great, either. I mean, I could live without it, but if you loved This Is What Happy Looks Like then why not finish off this series with this short novella. It wasn't enough to satisfy me, but it was short, sweet, and simple (maybe too simple), and Graham Larkin is still worth swooning over. <3 -
When I finished This is What Happy Looks Like, I felt that "awww" factor.. like when you see an old couple holding hands. But I picked up another book right away without too much thought. Probably knowing there was a short sequel and all that, I didn't feel any sort of real ending. But now, now that I've read this super cute novella and the Graham and Ellie story is officially over, I'm melting over the cuteness and I am suddenly not wanting to leave these two!!! Let the book mourning commence....
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THIS IS WAS I NEEDED AFTER THE UNSATISFYING ENDING OF THIS IS WHAT HAPPY LOOKS LIKE. Yes.
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Review coming soon!
