I loved this very much. I liked the characters and the plot. I found myself highlighting a good amount of the book. I’d recommend.

The novel Like Happiness by Ursula Villarreal-Moura follows the protagonist, Tatum Vega, a Chicana museum worker living in Chile in 2015 with her partner, Vera. Tatum confronts moments in her past that range from her years as an undergraduate student in a predominantly white institution to her young adult years living in New York while focusing on her toxic relationship with famous Puerto Rican writer M. Domínguez. Tatum carefully examines her memories of Domínguez as an investigation comes to light of him assaulting and abusing a Latina woman.

I really enjoyed this novel and appreciated how the author portrayed Tatum with so much vulnerability and strength. As I read Villarreal-Moura’s words, I was always rooting for Tatum and had so much empathy for her. While this story examines the harm that comes from unbalanced relationships and power dynamics, it also makes space for healing and resilience, which is essential for any narrative that explores abuse. This novel also handles with care themes related to representation (mainly as it deals with the Latine community), racism, gender and sexuality, loneliness, and ultimately finding one’s self. I highly recommend this novel and look forward to Ursula Villarreal-Moura’s future work.

This novel is told in a dual narrative recounting the decade that Tatum Vega spent in New York city with the famous author, M. Dominguez. A reporter contacts Tatum for background of her time with the author who has recently been accused of assault and she is forced to examine this time in her life.

I think for a debut novel, the author did a wonderful job. As the reader learns about Tatum’s life and the toxic relationships that she had with Dominguez, she blooms into a fully realized character. I think it is a beautifully written novel and I really enjoyed reading it.
Thank you to Netgalley and Celadon for a review copy.

I really liked this-- it was really well-written and I love literature about literature. It got to be a little slow at times but I still overall liked it a lot. I love the BIPOC queer representation as well.

A beautifully written novel that follows the all-consuming, toxic relationship between a writer and his young protege, Tatum, this book is deeply impactful. With nods to classic coming of age novels, LIKE HAPPINESS manages to find the balance between the ominous undertones of the unhealthy dynamic between its central characters while still maintaining a level of hopefulness for Tatum’s prospects. The writing is lyrical and captivating. It feels suspenseful in so many ways despite being contemporary fiction, not a thriller. The storyteller matters here, and the fact that we read this through Tatum’s perspective is purposeful and makes it mean that much more. What happens between Tatum and this successful author that has defined who she is for most of her young life? That’s up to you to discover after your own read of this brilliant book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon for the advance readers copy. All opinions are my own.

Great story about how people in power can manipulate and confuse you. This was a great story about finding yourself in this position and losing who you are in the process. Great debut novel!

𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬
𝐁𝐲 𝐔𝐫𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐚 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥-𝐌𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐚
𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐫: 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬
𝐏𝐮𝐛 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: 𝟑.𝟐𝟔.𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑆𝑜𝑜𝑛!


I liked how this is formatted as a sort of hindsight view, as we walk in on Tatum Vega in 2015, now living in Chile with her girlfriend. She is contacted by a journalist who wants to know about her relationship with the writer M. Dominguez, who has been accused of sexual misconduct. Tatum tells the journalist that, no, Dominguez has never mistreated her.

The book shifts to Tatum’s memories of her time with M. or Mateo as she has come to know him, from the fan letter she wrote to him when she was a college student and the strange friendship that blossomed from it.

But now, with the memories replaying, questions begin to plague Tatum as she looks back - was it a friendship? Had she been obsessed? Did he take advantage of her? She realized it was not sexual abuse, but something was off. All she believed, or wanted to believe about her old friend and mentor was starting to feel twisted.

There is a lot you could unpack: power struggles, heritage, betrayal, sexual identity, and I even felt there was a bit of academic snobbery going on. I just need more from the characters to balance the weight of the themes at play.

A thought-provoking debut.

Thank you @celadonbooks for the gifted digital ARC.
Thank you @macmillan.audio for the gifted audiobook.

Thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for this copy of "Like Happiness."

Tatum Vega is writing a final letter to famous author Mateo Dominguez to analyze the toxic relationship she had with him for 10 years.

She now wants to tell the story from her point of view and what she learned about herself and about him over the course of their friendship.

I took so many notes while reading this book - I had to record the phrases that were very powerful and meaningful to Tatum's analysis and understanding of herself.

She talks about finally using her voice instead of being a quiet observer in the shadows. She doesn't want to cower in silence any longer.

Tatum is happily living an expat life in Chile when a reporter contacts her to ask questions about an old friend. The ensuing interview drags up 10 years worth of history Tatum has tried to forget.

I loved this book. It was compulsively readable. I just wanted to get through the end to see what M had done to her.

I wouldn’t say that Tatum was a particularly like-able character, but I often found myself wanting to protect her from what was to come. I loved that the book was written as though Tatum was writing it all down in a letter to M, so we really go a deep dive into that relationship and how she was feeling after reflecting on it for years.

The betrayal at the end was definitely unexpected and I felt so heartbroken for young Tatum.

I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon for the ARC!

What a book! I thoroughly enjoyed this account of a young woman’s experience with her relationship with an older, successful author. The characters were so well-written and the prose was tight and clean. Despite the book focusing on heavy topics and covering over a decade of time, this book reads so easily. I couldn’t put it down.

Tatum was such an interesting character and I wish the book had been longer to cover more of her story. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading, but this was an outstanding book! Smart and literary, but universal and interesting. Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for the opportunity to read this e galley!

Like Happiness is about a young woman who reflects on the relationship she had with a prominent male author in the wake of sexual assault allegations against him.

The problem I had with this book was with Tatum, the main character. She seems more like a collection of sentences than a character. Specifically, her inner monologue basically had her explaining why and how she had reactions to things. If you’re using first person POV, do not have your character constantly justifying and narrating her emotions and actions to her own head. Show don’t tell can be hard in first person but it can be done and otherwise it is awkward and weirdly formal.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book keeps reminding me of 'Letter From an Unknown Woman' by Stefan Zweig (which I adore) and Haruki Murakami (which I dislike).

I enjoy the nuanced writing style, the second-person narrative, and the author’s choice to omit some major, twisty-worthy plot points. The anti-climax is so refreshing.

Even though the protagonist and I have zero experiences in common, I feel like I’ve been in similar situations or relationships, at least remotely. The emotional relevance is astonishing. Should I write a fan letter?

However, I really dislike the random name-dropping of artists/writers/songs/musicians. While the name mentions are relevant to the story half of the time, the rest just feel like showing off. It’s a pet peeve of mine. I don’t like when Murakami does that in his books, and I don’t like it in this book.

It’s funny that the author mentions Murakami so much in her book but doesn’t add his name in the acknowledgments while mentioning other inspiring authors. It’s like a book within a book. Is this on purpose? I don’t know, but I enjoyed it very much.

What do I think of this one? For starters, this is a very easy story to get wrapped into. How she meets Mateo and how her life wraps around him. At some point, it starts to get hard to listen to it. And then the betrayal at the end? Damn - that was rough.

I did find it a little confusing when it switched to the 2015 in Chile parts of the story. Idk if I just missed the switch or what but that threw me off a couple of times!

I’d give this one a 3.5. Engaging character even if she was naive. It was hard to listen to her be groomed by this man, idk the toxic relationship was tough. It’s giving what John Mayer does to get more creative content for his music….fu**ed up

I just don't think I am going to be able to give this book it's just review because I don't think I have the right words to describe it's eloquence and the way it will move the reader. Nevermind the story, I'll get to that in a minute, but the way the book is written, the poetic cadence, the weaving of the protagonist's list of books and authors that influence her, the depth of feeling as she comes to terms with the last 10 years of her life. It is so moving and deep and as you read, you want to shake her and say, "Wake up woman... don't you see what he's doing to you?" And finally, when she does, while it's a relief, at the same time, the reader feels like the bottom just dropped out of her world and will she ever be able to put the pieces back together and find her way to happiness.
Tatum Vega writes a fan letter to author M. Dominguez after reading his book "Happiness." Tatum has a visceral, almost life altering reaction to his story and feels compelled to let him know. Tatum is almost graduating from Williams College with a dual major in art and english. She is one of very few Latinas at the predominately white school and feels very awkward and out of place far from her Texas roots. Reading has been her obsession since her childhood and finds comfort in books and storytelling. So she is shocked when M. Dominguez replies to her letter and continues his correspondence with her via emails and later phone calls and finally meeting in person. He calls her mi vida or "my life" and she calls him Mateo. The 8 year age difference doesn't seem to matter to Tatum who becomes infatuated with him though Mateo is aloof but strings her along in an affectionate, paternal way over their 10 year relationship. She is never sure what he wants from her but is always there for him, answering texts, supporting his ego, traveling with him to book signings, just always a little bit out of his sphere but never completely away from his "grip." He always gives her just enough to keep her lurking nearby, feeling important to him and needed.
With the enormous success of "Happiness", Mateo has been struggling for years to write a second novel. He never shares with Tatum what he is writing though she asks him all the time. Meanwhile, he has his little meaningless trysts with fancy, successful women all the while, his affection seems to go only to Tatum. And Tatum finally realizes that she deserves someone to care emotionally and physically to her too and she meets Hiroshi who after a time, invites her to move in with him. But Mateo continues to keep his grip on Tatum's heart and psyche and subtly plays all the mind games with her, again, keeping her a distance but just within reach. It will take his new novel to finally implode their relationship for good.
This story is told as Tatum writes a final letter accounting her memories of their relationship to him after a NY reporter contacts her for an interview after another of Mateo's woman accuses him of being abusive towards her. This letter is cathartic and helps her to finally close the door to their toxic relationship. She is living in Chile and in a healthy supportive relationship with her partner Vera. Now with 30 year old eyes and more life experience, she can finally see what he was doing to her and she wants him to know. The last line of the story was so brilliant and perfectly sums up how this relationship defined her for 10 years : The wind picked up and crushed us together until I felt at home in your shadow. My own silhouette had been swallowed by your outline, and on the sand, I disappeared. "Mateo," I whispered. "Don't ever move." (pg 240)
The title of the book is so subtle because it defines what she thought was what happiness looked like until it didn't.
I am going to be thinking about this book for a very long time! I hope Villarreal-Moura has something in the queue soon. I am sure I will devour that book the way I did this one.
Thank you to Netgalley, Celadon Books and the author for the privilege of this ARC and for my own honest opinions in this review.

4.25 stars
I read this book over the course of a couple of days and watched the movie "Miller's Girl" in that time as well, so it's been an excellent time for being disgusted with men in positions of power over young girls! 

This is Tatum's story, told in dual timelines: present time, where she's living in Chile with her partner, Vera, and receives an unexpected phone call from a reporter for the New York Times. Mateo, a famous author who Tatum had a very close relationship with in the past, has been accused of sexual abusing female fans. Despite her insistence that her experiences with him were different, the Times wants to hear about her relationship with Mateo. The other timeline is told as a letter Tatum is writing Mateo and begins when she is in college, far from home, and desperate for an intellectual companion outside of literature. She writes a fan letter to her favorite author, and surprise, surprise, he writes back, and the two strike up a friendship.

The writing in this is beautiful, and I really appreciated the way that Tatum thought about books and reading. Hearing about her struggles with finding her own identity, first through stories and then through other people was poignant and painful. As the book went on I couldn't resist sending my friends updates and intense lines, which to me is one of the marks of a good book. There's so much detail in nuance in the first half of the book as the relationships shift and progress, I wish that we'd gotten more of that towards the end as Tatum has more realizations about her relationship with Mateo. I'd also have loved to see the fallout of things after her interviews with the reporter, and even more on how she ended up in Chile. But overall this was a thought-provoking read, and I definitely recommend. 

Thank you to Celadon Books and the author for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

This novel is set in Chile, where Tatum Vega leads a happy life with her partner, Vera. She enjoys being surrounded by art at the museum where she works.

However, Tatum's memories linger of a decade spent in the gravitational pull of a brilliant and enigmatic writer, M. Domínguez.

Like Happiness unfurls its narrative across dual timelines.

Ursula Villarreal-Moura masterfully navigates intricate relationships, and the bond between Tatum and Domínguez's is an all-consuming force that shaped Tatum's early adulthood.

The novel's structure mirrors Tatum's internal struggle by alternating between the present and the past via a heartfelt letter, which exposes old secrets.

The silence between the lines speak volumes of things left unsaid, memories, and the ache of loss.

Villarreal-Moura paints a vivid canvas of Latina identity in both the streets of New York City and the sun-drenched Chilean landscapes, as the pulse of memories converge. Tatum's journey becomes a reckoning—an excavation of self, culture, and the blurred boundaries of fame.

Like Happiness reads as if you are having a conversation with a treasured friend, and it lingers with you long after you have finished reading it...

Ursula Villarreal-Moura's debut resonates as a beautifully written, engaging read.

Like Happiness was completely unputdownable and such a unique story for me. From the moment Tatum started her letter to M. Domininguez to the last page, I was hooked.

The book is an epistolary novel, written in the form of a letter from Tatum to her author idol Mateo Domininguez, as she tries to come to terms with the poisonous relationship the two of them shared. Intermittently there are present day chapters written from Tatum’s POV.
The writing style was beautiful and the story line captivating. The incorporation of the perspective of a Latina character living in a non-Latino world was so concise and revealing in its perspective. It was presented in a manner that made me consider how others are treated. The inclusion of Spanish throughout the novel really helped solidify this viewpoint.

The character of Tatum was very relatable on so many terms. She is young and naïve, and far from her family. Ripe for someone to come along and take advantage of.

When I look back at this novel and try to consider what the author should change, I come up blank. This book was so well written and enjoyable that if it isn’t my top read of 2024 it will be very close to it.

Would I recommend it? Yes! Read it! Pre-order it! Whatever, get your hands on a copy and be prepared to be engrossed into the pages.

Beautiful writing. I found this book to be a quick read, and really powerful! This is one that I'll be thinking about for a long time. I would recommend!

I have mixed feelings about this novel. It is a slow read, very character driven and introspective. Many aspects of Tatum’s character made sense to me – particularly her lack of confidence and struggle to define herself in her twenties, and naivete and youthful innocence in allowing Dominguez to manipulate and exploit her.

I enjoyed reading this. The writing is very good. The author's use of second person through much of the book is well done.

In thinking about this afterward, I struggle with a lot of it. The protagonist's closure through explaining to Matteo how he hurt her is confusing. He's so self-centered and oblivious - why would he care how she feels, especially now? Also, she faults him for stringing her along for a decade, but he didn't really. And many of the character flaws he has, she does also. Most notably, she treats her family and friends pretty poorly, reaching to them when it's convenient for her.

Obviously I'm torn on this one. I would certainly read whatever is next from the author, and I purchased a copy for my library.

Thank you NetGalley and BookishFirst for the ARC.