Mary Miller is a highly talented writer and that is very clear with this short story collection. However, I liked very, very few of her characters and that ultimately affected my enjoyment overall. The characters felt very samey across the stories and I perhaps unfairly just felt irritated to see the same mistakes made over and over again. Perhaps it was me and that I was just in the wrong headspace to appreciate it but I found this book to be quite a depressing read. I will keep my review private though as I can see that another reader could enjoy it more.

Combining hard-edged prose and savage Southern charm, Mary Miller showcases transcendent contemporary talent at its best. With its collection of lusty, lazy, hard-drinking characters forever in their own way, Always Happy Hour confirms Miller as an heir apparent to Mary Gaitskill.

“Once you leave a place like that, so long as it isn’t your hometown, you know you won’t ever have to see any of those people again.”

I usually don't read short stories, but I liked reading this collection. At first, I thought the stories were following the same woman because the voice sounds similar throughout the book.

This was my first book by Mary Miller and I would read more from her.

*I received this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

A sharp, salty collection of stories about characters who are down on their luck, moving through a world that doesn't seem kind to them. A world of cigarettes, and puzzlement, sun and bewilderment. A memorable read, I look forward to more from this author. Highly recommended.

I love how funny and poignant this book was it is difficult to write short stories. It is also hard for an author to be consistent with the quality and theme of short stories comma but this collection was really well done.

Always Happy Hour seemed like the type of literature that would be insightful and thought provoking. I envisioned a novel about women who's lives were a mess because of personal struggles or bad luck, perhaps even tales about these women overcoming their poor circumstances - not a set of tales about women who are generally selfish, judgemental and/or continuing to support some serious self-confidence issues. These are women who know they have serious issues and do nothing to change it. In retrospect, this may have been a novel about mental illness rather than a novel about young women struggling with normal life issues - and that's okay - but this set of stories was not written for someone like me and my review will reflect that.
Some women are down on their luck because of temporary issues, others are in situations because they believe they do not deserve better or because they have untreated mental illness. Always Happy Hour is about the later, rather than the former.

It appears a majority of the women have substance abuse problems, issues with identifying physical or emotional abuse in their partners - or they identify the abuse and use drugs and alcohol to deal rather than leaving the abusive partner. There is also evidence of severe depression in the less "messed up" main characters, but throughout there is still a strong sense of judgement from these women towards the poor, the obese and the "ugly" which generally just pissed me off. If life sucks, don't take it out on others. Everyone has their own struggles and judging others for purely physical or economic reasons really pushes my "anti-sympathy" button. It might make me sound terrible, but the harsh judgement or abuse inflicted on others in some of these short stories made the characters extremely unlikable and therefore the novel itself a difficult pill to swallow.

My secondary issue with this novel was the run on sentences. I am in no way a writing genius with perfect grammatical structure - but I can pinpoint a run on sentence. Always Happy Hour is filled with run on sentences which the author could have meant to be stylistic in nature, but were actually extremely annoying. The run on sentences on top of judgmental characters made it difficult to really enjoy this anthology. The synopsis utilized far too many euphemisms for what this novel is really about: seriously damaged individuals who aren't interested in self-improvement or women with serious mental illnesses. I went into this novel expect spunky and fun characters, but got something else entirely.
So, the moral of this review is: this book tricked me into thinking it was something its not. Always Happy Hour is not happy - it is depressing, frustrating and difficult. It wasn't for me, but the cover is certainly pretty.

This novel will appeal to readers who enjoy anthologies about flawed individuals, novels about sad/dark subjects. I feel the need to note that this anthology uses euphemisms in the synopsis to mislead readers: this novel is about women with serious issues and not an anthology about fun and spunky women. It is not a novel about amusing anecdotes or fun nights out, but a novel about a set of women with a penchant for making poor decisions. I would recommend this to people who don't mind reading sad or intense stories with very little closure.

How dud I forget to review this??? I loved this story so much, the author's other books were added to my Christmas list. Wonderful writing, it kept me intrigued from start to finish. I get to read it again!!!

A collection of short stories, Always Happy Hour, speaks openly the uninhibited minds of female narrators who question their relationships, lifestyles and mostly themselves.

For a non-frequent reader of short stories as I am (somehow they go under my radar), this collection sparked my curiosity from the start. Sometimes I could understand the narrator and sometimes I could not. You may find a good number of similarities across the stories, but once you are past the first few lines, you realize that it is not at all as it seems.

The voice is clear and unpretentious. It doesn’t demand, complain, rant or force opinions. It reveals thoughts that are deeply intimate, like you have been granted a special permission to read someone else’s mind. The tones might be somber and the situations, well, sad, but desperation was not felt through the pages. At times I could find a flicker of hope. The women in the stories are authentic in their darkness and loneliness, but they are not stubborn or even angry about it. They just go along with it, as much as they could and for as long as they would. They keep living the lives they chose or the lives that chose them. There were moments when I wish they chose differently, acted differently or simply left. I wanted them to feel joy and break the cycle of the happy hour, the cycle of no way out.

Miller is skilled in writing prose that lulls you into reading. It doesn’t fight for your attention, but quietly invites you in. She is a great example of writers who can portray a picture with colors other than pastel and yet makes it worthy without adding the shock value in a sentence.

Whether it is your Friday night in, the weekend, your day off or your lunch break, Always Happy Hour offers something unique that you won’t find in the typical bookstore contemporary novel or in another TV drama. It is honest without spoon feeding you insights — you would need to make your own.

I have kindly received a copy of this book from NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company Liveright.

Two or three of these stories were the best I have read this year-the rest were problematic on many levels-