Aggressively Happy by Joy Marie Clarkson

I was drawn to this book by it's subtitle: "A realist's guide to believing in the goodness of life." At times through the turmoil of the past couple years it has been difficult to keep the goodness of the world in view. I'm not interested in an airy-fairy positivity that ignores the suffering in the world, but the subtitle implied that Clarkson would be exploring the goodness of the world despite the negative.

At times as I was reading the book I wondered what authority Clarkson had to be giving happiness advice. Often books on how to be happy are written by psychologists or therapists, but she is neither of those. Sometimes happiness books are written by people who have gained wisdom by living a long life, but to my understanding she is around 30 years old. Having said all that, I still thoroughly appreciated her thoughts! She might be someone we'd call "wise beyond her years".

It's hard to summarize the book because each chapter covers a different topic or aspect of happiness. Some of the chapter titles are: "Befriend sadness", "Flounder well", "Enjoy things unironically", and even "Expect the end of the world", just to give you a taste. As you can see she doesn't resort to predictable happiness cliches (e.g. "count your blessings"). She's a creative thinker that puts a novel spin on things.

It's also worth noting I found her an entertaining writer. She is often witty and humorous.

I'd recommend the book to anyone interested in the topic, but especially to people in their 20s. Because Clarkson just emerged from that stage of life many of the examples from her life would be relatable and applicable to young adults.