I just finished this and have so many mixed feelings. Happy Hour follows Gala and Isa, two early-twenty something British women, best friends and broke trying to navigate their way through adult life in the city. This novel was an enigma to me because at first I struggled to connect with the characters, and felt very distant from them and their fate. However as the events progressed I fell in love with them as Granados portrays so perfectly what is is like to be young, seemingly carefree in a city that has so much promise but also so much pretense. I also spent my early twenties in NYC, for me it is a city best experienced without a lot of money, when you're up and coming, full of potential, excitement, irresponsibility, mistakes and growth. It's a city unlike and other and the window it offers to the world is confusing, exciting, unreliable, always changing, and I believe Granados really captured this in her writing style & through the eyes of her characters. This is also a novel about what is means to be a young, maturing woman facing things on your own for the first time. What it means to be best friends in your early twenties, to feel like you both know everyone and no one at all.

A quick afternoon read about being young and living in NYC. Overall, a fairly entertaining read, but (perhaps because of the pandemic) this feels vapid and frivilous in a way that it might not otherwise. Although, it certainly is basically an escapist read.

Granados is a writer to watch. Happy Hour is a beautiful snapshot of a summer in New York City - full of vacuous, brilliant, bizarre, beautiful, kind, and cruel New Yorkers and wealthy nomads who drift in and out of the City. A must-read for fans of My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Cat Marnell's How to Murder Your Life.

A very quick and easy read. Made me miss New York more than ever, however, I just felt like I couldn't fully connect. However, it made me miss my early twenties and wishing I spent my summer in New York just being carefree. An easy summer read for sure!

I expected to like the novel a lot more than I did. The topics and the characters would normally interest me, but the writing style feels almost too light and lacking depth. The characters are all dynamic and captivating. Similarly, the New York scene is one I'm usually a sucker for. However, for some reason, I had a hard time getting started and staying engaged. While I enjoyed the novel, It likely wouldn't be one I would spend 25 dollars on for a hardback version.

Happy Hour follows Isa and her best friend Gala, as they hit the streets of New York City for a summer of fun. They're broke, they're young, and they'll do anything to keep living the good life. From penny-pinching to contemplating whether or not they should sell their feet pics for money (who hasn't been there, honestly) - the girls navigate summer in the city, galavanting from odd jobs to evenings full of different neighborhoods, and plenty of shiny, wealthy people. But as the summer progresses, the girls are strapped - and they need to turn their newfound love of the city life into something a little more sustainable.

A fun read about the possibilities, perils, and pitfalls, that living the (seemingly) glamorous life can hold.

Thank you to NetGalley and Verso for advance access to this title!

Review:
Plot: "Happy Hour" is the proof that books don't need extreme and elaborate plots to succeed in telling a story. This novel could be about me, someone I know, or any women in her early 20s eager to find adventure without having the means to do so. Isa and Gala arrive in NYC without much money, only the dream of a well spent summer. Not having much of a plan, they end up becoming a kind of entertainment for richer people. The result is a book about a hazy summer, thick with anxiety and hope.
Writing: Granado's writing style reminded me of Sally Rooney's "Conversations with Friends" in a way that it is real, raw and relatable. As much as the plot of this book is not complex, I found myself highlighting quotes and reflecting on them all the time. The book might seem superficial at first but is full of deeper meaning. The one reason why I`m not giving this book a five stars rating is that I wish the side characters had connected more. Often I felt like every time a new person was introduced, the previous one was completely erased from the story.
Characters: Gala can seem quite naïve at times, but she has great moments of feminist discusses. Isa (the MC), on the other hand, was crafted to be a smart, wit and down-to-earth woman that, at many times, I could relate to. Everyone else (with few exceptions) seemed to just be using the two girls for their own enjoyment and I am not a fan of that.
Verdict: Think of Elizabeth Gilbert's "City of Girls", minus the historical background plus the deep conversations of Sally Rooney's "Conversation with Friends" and that's what you get from Happy Hour. I recommend it!

Favorite quote: "The less time spent in public, the safer girls feels. That's not incidental, the world was built this way."
Soundtrack: I Am Not a Robot, by MARINA

REVIEW WILL BE POSTED ON INSTAGRAM ON SEPTEMBER 1ST

Bravo! A star is born!!

There is something incredibly vulnerable about writing a book and putting it out into the world to be judged. It is like putting oneself out into the world to be judged. This is all the more true when the "fiction" book is a barely veiled telling of the author's own life. Is this what they mean by "autofiction"? Whatever it is called, I find it incredibly brave. And, what's more, a privilege to have been allowed to read.

Isa/Marlowe is a completely different person than I am. She sees and interacts with the world in entirely different ways than me. She has a self assurance and ability to trust her own judgements that I did not have at her age. "I am highly educated in true sorrow, so I don't succumb to silly criticism." She writes as a woman in the world, but also a woman who does not live in fear of the world. With Happy Hour we are given the chance to see her perspective and learn from it. And this is a gift to be respected.

And yet despite our tremendous differences the author and I have shared so many similar experiences. She writes unabashedly about her ability to capture a room, at being yelled at by men driving by in cars, about being constantly exoticised by white people desperate to fetishise her "mix." "'Are you asking why I'm so pretty? If you are, just ask me that.' Did you know you can push back without anyone even noticing?" One cannot normally speak of these things without being perceived as bragging or arrogant, but they are not so. They are facts. I know, because I have suffered them, too. (Although in my case it is girls cat-calling me from passing cars). There is a crushing directness of so many societal truths laid bare in this novel that is joyfully refreshing.

Along with Sally Rooney, Granados also speaks to my experiences of interacting across the Atlantic and across the wide range of social classes I have also easily had access to. Both authors speak to the ease with which poor and incredibly wealthy mix nowadays, and how some are able to gracefully manage the class tension without compromising mutual respect or human connection - and how others are negligent, self-serving, or even exploitative. It is here that the author's personality and mine definitively overlap: we both have a keen eye for whether people are respectful, and the judgement to not always enforce respect even though one could.

Some goodreads reviewers have complained that there is no plot or character development in Happy Hour. To this I can only respond: that's the point! And she reminds us of this repeatedly in the book itself! At one point, to choose one example, Isa says she is reading A Rebours, "it's decadent and goes nowhere. You'll like it!" I mean, you really have to be a careless reader to miss it. And it really is unfair to judge a book for failing in something it deliberately seeks to avoid doing.

But it would be inaccurate to day Happy Hour goes nowhere. While this review is slightly serious, Granados is downright funny. Happy Hour is chock full of wisdom delivered eith such entertaining style that an unthinking person could pass it by. She writes so incredibly well, J.D. Salinger style, and is full of so many side splitting one-liners that Happy Hour is kind of like a literary Legally Blonde: a reminder not to underestimate the intelligence, capability or ethics of the fun ones - as they could easily be miles ahead of you.

No. What matters about Happy Hour is not that the protagonist enjoys character development. The protagonist is obviously unabashedly millennial. She has grown up with the internet at her fingertips and knows more about how things are than an equivalently aged person from previous generations. She knows deeply class mobility no longer exists and so money that comes into one's life might as well be spent on little pleasures, because life is short and there is no hope for us. No. What matters is not character development - she has that already - but that the protagonist finds her way. And if she can, then perhaps we can, too.

I am not sure what I expected of this novel going into it; "Happy Hour" is definitely well-written, the prose was delicate, descriptive, flowing and absolutely to my liking. Although it fell a bit short characterwise, Granado's "Happy Hour" is full of engaging observations and sharp commentary on life and people.

A light yet enjoyable read for anyone who wants to detach for a bit and set foot into another world unlike their own. Marlowe Granados sets a scene you feel you know intimately.

First, I love the cover and the sentiment behind this novel. It's fresh, fun, and sharp like eating tangy fruit, full of adventures our main character Isa and her best friend Gala embark on in New York City. These range from tapas and drinks to arrogant artists and socialites. I usually hesitate at stream of consciousness texts (except Catcher in the Rye) but this one worked well, even without a standard steadfast plot. It reminds me a lot of a spontaneous meal you don't expect to love because it was thrown together with the ingredients at the last minute, but yet...you do!

Set during a sweltering summer in New York City, Happy Hour follows best friends Isa and Gala as they navigate the Big City, their relationships, and what it means to be a 20-something year old, doing odd jobs to pay the rent and somehow still not having enough money to buy a proper meal. From being foot models for a day to going on dates before making a run for it as the check comes, the two friends find ingenious (and sometimes borderline criminal) ways of making money (or at least not spending as much).

Written in the style of a diary, we experience their lives through the lens of the witty and observant Isa whose characterizations of the people she meets are one of the most entertaining aspects of the book. It makes you wonder how, were you ever to meet her, she would describe you. The story is fresh and breezy for the most part which is a welcome escape in a time where life has almost come to a standstill and going out every night seems like a memory from a previous lifetime. That being said, Happy Hour does not shy away from tackling some more serious issues, like growing up, losing your parents, or falling for the wrong guys, just to name a few. One sentence I found particularly striking is when Isa observes: “When we were younger, everything for the first time always felt the best, or at least the Most, and sometimes getting older feels like striking the same chord and it sounding different.”

I don’t have a lot of quarrels with this book, the only things I would like to mention is that it took me a while to really get settled in to the book but after the first 10% or so, I felt really immersed and wanted to keep reading to see what would happen next and who they would meet. Another thing is that this book has quite the ensemble cast and a lot of minor characters which I difficult to follow but fortunately, Granados does a fine job in reminding the reader who this person was and how they relate to our two main characters.

All in all, a really fun reading experience, especially if you’re longing to travel and to HAVE THINGS HAPPEN again.

I'd give Happy Hour a 3.5. I didn't find it irritating that there wasn't a plot as such, and I'm normally very much a plot person, but for me the sense of time, place and character really carried it.

An interesting book for sure but I felt it did not have much substance. Sure, we have these two young women who are out in NYC to explore and see the world... and what? I felt like it was too shallow for me...
Hard pass

I am not sure what I expected of this book; whatever it was, it was unexpected. The characters had me wondering what will they end up doing or being when the book ends. I don't want to give the book away, but I have a pretty good feeling you will be wondering the same thing when you read this book.

I don't think this book was necessarily bad? It just wasn't for me. I got about halfway through and honestly thought I would finish it, but just felt myself not caring about the rest of the story and reading it was starting to feel like a chore. It's definitely well-written and has an interesting premise, but I felt like it was missing something. I doubt I'll come back and finish this one, but would read something else from the author in the future!

This ARC had so many typos I could barely read it. Parts of entire words were missing. I enjoyed the book (what I was able to read of it) but will have to wait until it comes out to read it.

As a once young woman coming of age in New York City, I enjoyed revisiting those "worry-free" years everyone seems to romanticize. It seems as though being carefree actually comes with many levels of worry, often made worse when they end up being self-inflicted. Unfortunately I found most of this novel as hollow as the characters' themselves. I wanted to like it more, but maybe that's just my nostalgia talking. I understand the stylistic perspective was to breeze in and out of story lines (in this case from one hustle and drunken bender to the next) but I would have liked it more if there was more of a background story into the characters themselves. Bonus points for some very funny one liners peppered all over the place. I lol'd several times.

Marlowe Granados' Happy Hour was a fresh and fun read. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Granados' writing was exciting and flowed nicely — keeping me wanting more and more as I continued reading about Isa and Gala.

The novel focuses on Isa and Gala's summer in New York. Their adventures are described in such a spectacular way that I felt like I was experiencing them, too. The writing and adventures all felt familiar, but not because I'd ever even been to New York, but because it took me back to my own time in college in my late teens and early 20s. It reminded me so much of the fun I had with my own best friend.

Isa's character was lovely to continue learning about throughout the novel, though I could've done without Gala. Her character was, quite honestly, a little annoying and empty. But maybe the characters aren't exactly supposed to be completely likable? It still works for this book either way.

While overall I enjoyed this book, there are certainly things that could've added to it in a positive way. There wasn't an actual plot to the story, but I guess that's what you get with a diary-style book. I would've also enjoyed more of a backstory to each of the characters. We got peeks into their lives prior to Isa and Gala's time in New York, but nothing substantial. I was itching for more on that front.

Thanks to NetGalley and Verso Books for this ARC.

What a joyous read! Told through diary entries over the course of one summer, the novel tells the story of Isa and Gala, two best friends visiting New York from London. We see them hop from one social situation to the next, meeting caricature after caricature, all the while hustling and trying to make ends meet. It's a sharp novel, which renders the social landscape of the contemporary art world, and lit world, and media more broadly, in addition to the protagonists' specific milieu, exceedingly well. Though Granados certainly pokes fun at all types of people, there's also something terrifying realistic to their portrayals--this isn't satire, despite its humorous edge. Her prose, too, is both effervescent and laugh-out-loud funny. And I both find the novel to be incredibly contemporary (I thought a lot of Naoise Dolan's Exciting Times) and also reminiscent of something straight out of the 1930s, something by Jean Rhys. But above all, Granados has written a beautiful portrait of friendship and intimacy, I think this is where she truly shines. What a feat.