I have found myself fascinated by dystopian/apocalyptic style novels recently and love how many different takes of it there are.

How Icasia Bloom Touched Happiness is definitely one of my favourites in that genre. Icasia Bloom is a single mum who is trying to navigate life without conforming to the new world order. She meets Selma, a mum and wife who is trying everything to save her husband, Jerome. The two women become friends and try and save Jerome's life together. In order to do that, he has to reach the ultimate goal of true happiness.

Even though this is set in a fictional future, the quest of finding happiness and true contentment is probably as old as human life itself. I love how the author was able to create this bridge between science fiction and reality which really struck a chord with me on an emotional and spiritual level. It also made the dystopian reality work quite well without in-depth explanations about what happened, huge events or the detailed creation of an entire empire.

The story is told using three different perspectives and while I understand why it was told that way and it all came together nicely at the end, I found it confusing at times and found myself reading back a few times in order to piece things together. Especially at the start, this prevented me from really connecting to the story or its characters, however, once I got used to it, I found myself immersed in this story completely.

This is a book about the very essence of humanity, about love, friendship and finding happiness in places people might have forgotten to look for it.

Finishing this review with one of my favourite quotes in the book:

You don't need an entire Globe of people violently revolting against the establishment to initiate change. All it takes is one person - to knock the first domino down.

Thank you to Vine Leaves Press, Jessical Bell and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an honest review.
#HowIcasiaBloomTouchedHappiness #NetGalley

I really enjoyed this book, it was well written, had good flow and narrative and well-developed characters with good world building. The characters grab you along with the story from the first few pages. would definitely recommend checking it out. I finished it in a few hours I could not put it down.

Imagine the afterlife being gate kept by happiness - not just yours, but your child's as well. Once you reach a certain age, your soul is held in a Transition Grave (if you've reached true happiness, that is) to await the day your child reaches happiness themselves - from there, you move on to the afterlife. What happens if you don't attain happiness? This is what happens to Jerome. His death inducement date is rapidly approaching and his soul is about to be snuffed out. His family, DeathCare therapists, and a new family friend (our story's namesake), desperately race to help him find happiness.

I loved every second of this- the world building is astounding and I want more.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

There are no more countries, only one Globe, under the leadership of quasi one man - Jacobson movement.
Every woman must have a child - from the age 15. But wait, what about physicality of girls, you may ask? Well, they hacked the system. Intercourse is no longer tool of making children, it's just about the pleasure, once the random donor’s sperm is given to you surgically. You also may or may not marry the donor (but you may not have a health care benefits then).
But what is more important (actually, the most important thing in your life), you need to have happy life and successful career to die happily and transition your soul into the next phase. If not, your parents and you will be permanently terminated.

Icasia is a tatter. She doesn't have a steady job, just works wherever and whenever it's possible, in exchange of food, etc. In the neighbourhood opens new bakery, and thus comes to the story Selma with her husband Jerome and 13yo daughter Leila. Jerome has a problem, he has not yet achieved happiness and he and his parents going to die forever. Can they prevent it and find his happiness?

Story is told continually from 3 views: Icasia's POV, general POV, therapy POV (which sometimes didn't make sense to me). I wasn´t very fond of the constant changing. Characters were quite annoying (but maybe they supposed to be) and I needed more answers than was explained.

It is not action/radical movement story. It's more spiritual. How do you find happiness? Can it be found only in work achievements, as the government says? I like my dystopias with twisted secrets. This was also kind of twisted but more on the soft side. I was still missing something utterly wrong which didn´t come (I´m thinking now; I may have a problem, not a book.?). But if you like spiritual dystopias, Icasia is for you.

First off, let’s appreciate this stunning book cover! It caught my attention right away, and it was a great surprise that this pretty cover belonged to a dystopian book, for it’s my favorite genre ever!

When I started reading this book, I could see that it was different from the other books in its genre. It indeed has some connection with The Handmaid’s Tale, but this book was much enjoyable, in my opinion. The writing style was simple, and I finished reading the book in one sitting. It’s true that the description of the places, sometimes, wasn’t clear for me to imagine them. However, the characters were layered enough for me to keep on reading this remarkable book.

The main idea of the book made me think long about it. Finding your happiness on a new level gave depth to the book, making it unique. The first/third person POV was a good choice. And I found this way of telling a story fascinating because I love reading a story from the first-person POV; it was interesting to find out what the other characters were thinking and what was happening with them.

And, yes, I hated Norate, of course!

A particular scene was touching and brought tears to my eyes when the thirteen-year-old Leila had to go through a process to make her pregnant.

Overall, I strongly recommend this book to anyone who likes Dystopian books.

This book should be under the horror genre. When I started reading it, I could not focus on the characters or the plot because I was shocked by the world-building. The book is not very long, but it manages to soak the reader in all the elements of The Globe. Eventually, the book focused more on the plot and I got used to the world portrayed. Even if I could not connect with the characters because their situations are extremely particular to the future where they live, I was interested in knowing how were they going to solve their problems. I must admit I was expecting a deeper discussion about happiness, but even if it is an important part of the story, it was touched superficially. I do wonder why the author decided to give Icasia a swastika tattoo and made her use the g-word to describe herself.

3.7 Stars

*The review contains a few spoilers*

Icasia Bloom lives in a Globe that’s controlled by an elusive leader, Jacobson. They have to adhere to the Rules and follow the protocols. People like Icasia find a way to rebel without entirely breaking the rules.
However, for people to move from First Life Phase to Second Life Phase they need to find Happiness and a Letter that says they have been successful in finding happiness. It’s a dystopian world with rules of its own.
Icasia isn’t bothered much about her happiness. She only cares for her son’s happiness and future. Being a single mother isn’t easy either. She meets Selma, another woman who has been straddling the Rules.
Selma needs to find a way for Jerome to get his Letter of happiness before his 40th birthday. If not, he’ll lose his life and has no say in the matter. Nothing seems to be working, and Icasia promises to help. This results in some vital questions and rule-defying answers that change the way the Globe looks at happiness.
The title and the cover attracted my attention. Dystopian isn’t my genre, but I’m glad I requested this one. The story starts almost straight away and goes on to share details in bits and pieces. That prevented information dump and kept me interested.
The narration jumps from the second person to the third person to omnipresent. Luckily, the chapters are titled (Listen/ Watch/ Chronicles) to alert readers to this fact. The story walks a fine line between dystopian and philosophical. Things are different yet the same.
The characters are flawed, but most of them don’t appear silly or stupid. Leila, Selma's teenage daughter, was a typical teen, which meant some of her actions don’t make sense unless there’s a proper backstory and complete arc.
The theme of the book hinged on what happiness is and how one should find it. As with the dystopian trope, the government has a role to play in most decisions. It isn’t anything new, to be honest. The author makes it interesting to a major extent by using the setting to her advantage.
However, I felt she hasn’t delved deep into the concept. It could be because she didn’t want to risk being preachy. Lord knows how hard it is to maintain balance. Still, the characters needed more exploration. Some of the scenes feel disjointed, as if there’s a missing link. This link doesn’t appear elsewhere to complete the connection. Nor do we find answers to certain questions about why the Rules were established that way. (It sounds vague because I’m trying to avoid spoilers).
The premise is excellent, and the use of the bluebird is worth mentioning. The characters needed more effort. They are good, but they had to be better to elevate the story. Some of the scenes felt too distanced to feel for the characters. I don’t usually relate to most characters, so that’s not an issue. But I do like to feel for them.
It would sound better to call the swastika a Hindu symbol rather than a Sanskrit symbol. Sanskrit is our ancient language with a script and symbols of its own. There is no difference per se, but it’s important to us. It is a part of our culture; we like to not be disassociated from the sacred symbol or our sacred language the way it is being done with yoga.
That said, the presence of swastika adds no value to the story. It was used more of a prop to show that the character knew the difference between the Hindu swastika to the Nazi symbol and maybe to bring a sort of inclusivity in the book. After that, there’s no mention of it again. It doesn’t feature anywhere else in the book. I don’t think the book would be the least affected if that scene mentioning the swastika tattoo was removed.
And Eve could have been the reader. In fact, I preferred it that way. The last chapter could have been better without Eve being a victim of a car accident or losing her memory. The ending wasn’t too great. It sort of diminished the emotions evoked until then.
To sum up, How Icasia Bloom Touched Happiness is a decent novel with multiple aspects to ponder about. The book is fast-paced and worth a read.
Thank you, NetGalley and Vine Leaves Press, for the ARC.

Although I really liked the concept of this book, in the end it just wasn't for me. The world-building and narrative were interesting but nothing felt real enough - the dialogue between the characters felt incredibly forced and the plot went too quickly, with too many plot holes. The execution didn't hit the mark, but the author created a lot of potential; I would be curious to see it explored in further stories.

Fantastic short story that really pulled you in considering the length. It did remind me of other books I have read at times, but only briefly and it ended up not annoying me. This little story hit on so many social issues and morals that it was almost hard to catch all the references. I will tell the library to get this for sure and would love to read something else by this author.
Just reviewed How Icasia Bloom Touched Happiness by Jessica Bell. #HowIcasiaBloomTouchedHappiness #NetGalley

i got this book for free in exchange for an honest review through Netgallery.

Icacia bloom is someone that doesnt live like other people, in her world, there, females are impregnated by a donor instead of falling in love with someone and getting pregant after, after beeing impregnated they have the choice to marry their donor, if their donor is already married, another donor or chose to live alone with the child and therefore dont recive any help from the governement. Acacia when in situation, she chose not to marry and therefore she dont have a very stable finance life and she need to do tit-for tat, some odd jobs/favors in exchange of food to feed her soon Abel,, so when a new coffee shop opens nearby, Acacia seens in that an oportunity to feed her son. And in this coffee shop she meets Selma beyett and the story grows from there.
I loved the voices of this book, it gets really close to us because it gets down to a single character like a letter to someone. i did enjoy that intimacy within the book. what i did not like, was the lack of self judge this society from the characters, it was like it was impossible to change so they only accepted their fate, an interesting side story would be by the eyes of a government worker, and read what they go through what are the perks, we had kind of a teaser of this with jerome part of the story.

overall i liked this story, and wanted more for it not to end, i wanted to know more about acacia parents, more about abel after what happened in the story, what really means for someone to get the letter, a way to change the core of this society, because children of 13/ 15 years old are not meant to get pregnant acacia was impregnated with abel when she was 14/15 its a tough life for a child, claim for family when makes a family apart... well let just say its messed up, but what dystopia its a good place to live?

People in this world revolve around death, like death is happiness, if you have a good job you'll die happy and get a letter. from the government, and people dont really know what makes them tick to get this letter.

“A little fire kindled in my chest at the sounds of ‘happy’ and ‘simple’. There must be some kind of link, I thought.” From How Icasia Bloom Touched Happiness

3.5 stars

Warnings: depression/contemplating suicide, forced teenage pregnancy

I fell in love with this gorgeous cover and knew I had to read it. You are thrust into a dystopian world with a lot of jargon immediately, without an info dump until about 20% of the way in. The story seems to be in first person told to someone named Eve; but a few times feelings of other characters were related that she wouldn’t have access to. Halfway through almost you get a few third person accounts mixed in. There were some world building flaws not addressed, like what about infertile women, I guess they don’t exist? And women who get pregnant with their tubes tied, which seeing as this is done to teenagers, and the younger that happens the less effective it is for birth control later on. Why they would force teenagers to have a child when the whole problem was overpopulation in the first place wasn’t really explained. Or how happiness was really monitored. Why on earth would Selma want her daughter to get pregnant even earlier at 13? I had a real disconnect with that character because of that. There seemed only a brief outline of closure to the story, which is also not my preferred end. I wish the theme of everyone needs something different to reach happiness was explored a little more, I thought that was the strength of the book.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.