Book Review of Happy People Don't Live here By Amber Sparks

   

Name of Book: Happy People Don't Live here

Author: Amber Sparks

ISBN: 9781324094395

Publisher: W.W. Norton

Type of book: Relationships, connections, contemporary times, 2020s, mother/daughter relationship, Minnesota, ghosts, mysteries, secrets 

Year it was published: 2025

Summary:

In Amber Sparks’ highly anticipated debut novel, a reclusive mother and her saturnine daughter move into a haunted building brimming with eccentrics—and secrets.

Just past the edge of summer, Alice and Fern arrive at the Pine Lake Apartments—a former sanitorium occupied by an ensemble of peculiar neighbors and a smattering of ghosts. Among the living: a professional mermaid, a handyperson moonlighting as a medium, and an awkward professor of medieval studies. For the determinedly private Alice, Pine Lake seems the perfect place to hide herself and her daughter—until the day Fern finds a dead body in the dumpster. Intent on solving this mystery, and dodging warnings from her increasingly paranoid mother, Fern’s investigation digs up long-buried secrets that implicate each of her neighbors . . . and conjures a new party from beyond the grave. A darkly funny gothic tale, Happy People Don’t Live Here is an unforgettable novel from a “master of the fantastic” (Roxane Gay) that takes a sharp look at love, family, and the sometimes-dangerous myths we make for ourselves.

Characters:

Main characters would be Alice and Fern. Alice is the mother who does miniatures and comes from an abusive household. Alice is very afraid of a lot of things and quite often doesn't allow for Fern to have a stable life or community. I also get the sense that the two are more like sisters than mother and daughter. Fern is a precocious, curious and can see ghosts. She also loves mysteries and often tries to fit them into her real life. The side characters include Noel, Alice's love interest who is a medieval historian and is into monks as well as the landlady, the mermaid lady, a soldier and a psychic, and, eventually, a ghost who is a con artist and is looking for her sister. 

Theme:

There is a connection between everything

Plot:

The story is in third person narrative from Alice's and Fern's points of view. (Most of the story is told from Fern's point of view) although from time to time Alice's love interest, Noel also makes his point of view known from time to time. Original story begins with a mysterious woman disappearing and promising to appear one day. and then the story begins with Fern and Alice moving in into the apartment and settling in as well as meeting other residents of the Pine Lake apartments. Fern eventually discovers a body and that leads to a lot of interesting confessions and questions about past, present and possible futures as well as wonders on the afterlife. I definitely liked the characters and the revelations at the end, and often wished I could see more of the residents. 

Author Information:
(From goodreads)

N/A

Opinion:

This is certainly a fun and quirky novel that examines relationship between mothers and daughters as well as relationships between history and present, in particular if its possible to discover answers to let go of the past and begin the future. It also seemed to lack a bit of focus or on how certain things are tied up with each other, (For example, I understood ghosts and past, but what of Abelard and Heloise, the doomed couple?) and I wasn't quite sure what to focus on as I traveled through the story..  I think I also would have liked a more complete picture of the residents that are living in the apartments. 

This was given for review

4 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)