I love Claire Kann. And I love this book the most. We need more books with Queer, Plus Sized POC, especially in romances! And I especially loved that there was a queer platonic relationship, we don’t get that very much in books. All in all it was a very heartwarming read that I think everyone should give a chance.

If It Makes You Happy - Claire Kann

This is my second book by Claire Kann and I had so much fun reading this one! We follow Winnie, who’s fat, Black, and queer. She spends every summer working at her grandma’s diner. She has an “ungirlfriend”, Kara, who she is in a queer platonic relationship with. (More of a commitment than a friendship but not a romantic relationship.) It’s implied but never stated that Kara is aromantic!

Winnie starts to fall for a boy and Kara struggles with this and wanting to keep Winnie for herself, even though she’s not looking for anything romantic. Winnie also has a really strong relationship with her brother Winston and that relationship was my favourite part of this book!! She was so protective of him. This was just such a fun and different story and I really enjoyed it. Winnie also deals with fatphobia from her grandma. She’s comfortable in her own skin and isn’t looking to lose weight but her grandma tries to put her on a diet.

I really loved this one and cannot wait to read the other books by Claire Kann on my tbr!!

If it makes you happy was a book that i just couldn’t connect with! I found the narration a bit dull and boring to be very honest. I wouldn’t even get myself to finish it even after trying multiple times. Sorry to the author but this book didn’t work from me.
Thanks to netgalley, the publisher orange Sky audio and author for this ARC.

4/5 stars

TWs: Toxic relationships, asthma attack, fatphobia, fear of abandonment (expressed by an aspec person about the romantic/sexual relationships of their allo friends), racism, medical malpractice

This was such a fun, heartwarming, teary and cuddly story, that gave me so many smiles and something comforting to think about. A Black, fat, polyamorous and queer main character, a cast of side characters that are tied to her with so many amazing bonds, queerplatonic relationship representation, cooking and joy are all the ingredients that made this story sweet like candy and sparkly like a fizzy drink, and it was much much better than the author's previous book. I highly recommend if you are looking for a fun contemporary read for the summer, full of sunshine chaotic characters, the power of being yourself, in your own terms, and softness being seen as a strength ♥

I'll be honest, I was a little bored. If you asked me what this book is about, I wouldn't be able to tell you (and yes, I did listen to the entire thing, and I wasn't distracted). The book starts off as being about our main character being crowned Summer Queen against her will, but that plot quickly gets discarded. We didn't really see anything about that summer festival, except for a few very short scenes here and there. Instead, we mostly follow Winnie as she is going about her summer. But don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed it. I grew attached to the characters, especially Winnie. I felt for her in a way I hadn't anticipated. Winnie is fierce and I admire her for it. But my favorite part about this book is the discussions the author goes into. As we are following a plus-sized queer Black girl, there are multiple discussions about race, being fat, and LGTQ+ themes. I loved the way the author was able to incorporate these topics into the story.

I like a lot of the aspects of this book but, together as a whole I didn't enjoy it like I was anticipating. Winnie bothered me at times but I was rooting for her to find acceptance and love while finding herself. I love Winnie's confidence and fat acceptance.

I love that poly and non romantic queer relationships were portrayed and addressed. Kara bothered me though in some of her actions. Her and Winnie were open about what they were and wanted yet she acted in a way that didn't mesh with her words.

I like the idea of the struggles between Winnie and her grandmother, but there was too much stubbornness and selfishness. They were so similar but her grandmother refused to let anyone else grow.

Overall, it was good but not great. It fell short of what I was hoping for.

This book was a warm, sugary read, and I loved listening to the audiobook! The characters all had such voice and personality and that really made me feel invested! I liked the character relationships & the broader messages in the book, and thought it was such a good read.

I am done. I have made it 65% of the way through this audiobook and cannot take it anymore. There are still 3 and a half hours to go, and I just cannot do it anymore. This book is a nothing but whinny drama. The reason I stuck with it for so long is that it has excellent fat representation. When Winnie goes to the doctor for a school blood test, a battle of wills ensues over her weight and standing on the scale. I have been that fat teenager, and I completely get this section of the book. I had to share it with friends it is so accurate. And it was these moments, like the grandmother who made her exercise and would only feed her “healthy” food while her siblings got what ever they liked that made me feel seen. However, our gal Winnie is dealing with more than her weight. Cara, her best friend, her “ungirlfriend” is not making the summer any easier. Cara and Winnie have been best friends for years. They only see each other in the summers but they are bonded for “life”. The “ungirlfriend” think is a bit hard to wrap your head around. It is explained 3 different times, and the best short explanation given by Winnie herself is “queer platonic”. It’s confusing, but I can roll with it, let me learn new things and ideas. Winnie also really likes Dallas, but Cara is in the middle of that too. This book is a character study, which I rarely like, but to me what makes this one worse is the “whininess” of the two main characters. I cannot stand it. However, saying that, this book isn’t without merit. I can see patrons liking and even loving this book. It being exactly what a young fat teen girl needs, that girl was just never me.

I like the combination of elements here, especially as there are some I hadn't seen before. We see unhealthy relationships with parents, not so often with grandparents. And I like the struggle that it represents. The grandmother is someone she truly loves and admires, yet their relationship is strained. Its also the first time I've seen polyamory explored at any depth in a novel. I like how challenging all of the relationships, romantic or familial, are in this book. It's messy and all of them make mistakes.

Although I expected a completely different story after seeing the cover, I enjoyed the story a lot. I like how self confident the protagonist becomes.

I had some mixed feelings about this book. I really felt for Winnie. She seemed like a sweet caring young lady that took pride in who she was, yet seemed to be knocked down by her grandmother repeatedly. It was a pretty easy book to follow and I enjoyed it for the most part. It just bothered me that two of the people that should have been Winnie's support system came across as selfish and just really ignorant when it came to her feelings. The book was well written, I'm just not sure the story as a whole did it for me.

I freaking loved it! It has been on my list FoReVeR and thanks to NetGalley I was finally able to read it! Not to mention being this in an audiobook format, I could easily navigate my mom life and do what I love most! This romcom was delightful, made me miss summer and I couldn’t keep down some escaping giggles! Being a feel-good story it also had some heavy thoughts that made Winnie’s story special and more relatable! Discovering herself, her identity , whom she loves and embracing her body— beautifully written! The narrator made everything perfectly dynamic and gave Winnie an amazing voice! 5 stars!

This book was absolutely a BALL to listen to.; I bought it and read it when it first came out but I love hearing the voices of Winnie and Dallas along with all her other friends and family. It help transport me and made me feel like I was in the book. It was a quick listen and flowed really well, huge props to the narrator for giving all these amazing characters their own wonderful voices.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to listen to this audiobook.

DNF @ 30%.

This is 100% a "me not you" situation but I just didn't get on with this book. I totally understand why people love this one, unfortunately, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I would definitely still recommend checking this out if its something you think you'd like! And I'll for sure pick up something else by this author in the future, this one was just a miss for me.

A sweet story about a young girl's experience with small town USA while she tries to overcome her insecurities and how strange the world can be, especially regarding sexuality and bodies. I got the chance to learn about the queerplatonic part of the sexuality spectrum through this book!
It was also nice to see a strong protagonist who has challenges in life without undermining her core of confidence!

I don't really know how to review this one. I enjoyed it, it was an easy listen, nothing overly exciting happened and at some points I found the story to drag a little. I found Winnie mostly likeable but at times she did really frusterate me. I liked the relationship between Winnie and Cara as I haven't read about a queer platonic relationship before.

Today I'm excited to share a tour stop for If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann out now in Audiobook from @orangeskyaudio & narrated by Caroline Sorunke! Claire Kann's If It Makes You Happy is a coming-of-age novel about a young girl learning to embrace her cultural and sexual identity.

Here's a short synopsis:
Winnie is living her best fat girl life and is on her way to the best place on earth. No, not Disneyland–her Granny’s diner, Goldeen’s, in the small town of Misty Haven. While there, she works in her fabulous 50’s inspired uniform, twirling around the diner floor and earning an obscene amount of tips. With her family and ungirlfriend at her side, she has everything she needs for one last perfect summer before starting college in the fall.…until she becomes Misty Haven’s Summer Queen.

Thoughts- I wanted to read this because I am a big fan of Claire Kann's Let's Talk About Love.

I love Winnie's never backing down, hot tempered when bothered attitude, I like that she gives back double when people make fun of her for being fat or when people are racists. Love the fact that there is such a strong rep here.

I can so relate to the *more-than-required* involved family in Winnie's affairs ,they are protective of her and love her but they sometimes fail to understand her state of mind, like the weight machine or the shopping mall incident and make her feel uncomfortable.

I haven't read about polyamorous or quasi platonic relationship / friendship at all so I am gonna pick up those kind of books after reading this.

Winnie's love interest is a cutie you can't help but adore him! Winnie's brother too is one of my favorite characters in the book, I love their relationship and banter.

Spending one last summer working at her Granny's Diner before she goes to college, Winnie soaks up the opportunity to spend this time with the people she loves the most: her Granny, her 'baby' brother Winston, her cousin Sam, and her ungirlfriend Kara. The idea of an easy summer is quickly laughed away when she is unexpectedly chosen as the Haven Summer Royalty Queen and thrust into the spotlight, somewhere she would give anywhere not to be. With the assistance of Dallas and Kara, "If It Makes You Happy" takes you on a rollercoaster of a ride throughout this process while talking about weight and LGBT+ issues.

I rate this book 3.5 stars.

This audiobook was really slow paced. I don't know what I was expecting but this one was hard to get into.
Winnie didn't really engage me but I was rooting for her to find love and acceptance. I would have loved to know who nominated her but I applauded her for participating in the pagaent. I can't imagine what it is like for a queer young black girl to navigate her sexuality while staying with her black grandmother. They tend to be so set in their ways especially due to religion but Winnie had a healthy sense of self.

I am still learning the terminology but her relationship with Winnie was never fully defined and I was waiting for that. I thought this book wasn't as good as Let's Talk About Love.

Sadly, the narration was not for me. I have ADHD and one of the ways that manifests is through something called misophonia which can, at times cause me to have aversion to specific sounds to sound combinations. This is normally limited to noises pertaining to drinking or children singing and the like and doesn’t normally interfere with my enjoyment of audiobooks in the slightest, thank God. My ADHD also means that audiobooks are my primary way of reading because it best suits my attention span. Unfortunately, in this case, the narration of this particular audiobook caused a flare-up of my misophonia that is rarer in that it resulted in a physical cringe response that made it difficult for me to concentrate on plot details and anything beyond the aspects which negatively resoud in my abnormal brain. I genuinely don’t think this is narrator’s fault. It is just faulty wiring in my brain which caused me to light up negatively to certain character voices. It’s not even all the time with every performance, but a couple of the character choices and inflections just didn’t work for me. I really wish that wasn’t the case. I am going to try to borrow the ebook from one of my libraries and just try to read this one physiclly one day. Normally, I do better with audiobooks but this is likely an exception. First, my misophonia keeps me from being able to sit still in a theater when trailers for Annie or when any coke commercials play and now I can’t enjoy this audiogalley. That’s supremely disappointing. I made it as far as I could and was very into the plot but it wasn’t worth it if I had to listen to it super sped up and was about to crawl out of my skin when 4 different characters spoke. I will definitely give this book a try in a visual format and look forward to more from this author and this publisher. My apologies that my neurodivergence kept me from being able to properly engage with this title. As it is, I am rating it based on my opinion of the plot and not downranking because I had a problem. I thank the publishers profusely for investing in audiobooks, as they are typically the only way I can consume books in a timely manner and I’m honored to have gotten early access to this. This reaction of mine to this particular title was the exception to the rule and I hope to be able to work with you again in the future. Thank you.