Like Happiness
Ursula Villarreal-Moura
Like Happiness
Ursula Villarreal-Moura
Hardback / bound
|
English
€22.50
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Description
Deeply felt and achingly intimate, I couldn't put it down. I feel like it scoured something deep inside of me
Deeply felt and achingly intimate, I couldn't put it down. I feel like it scoured something deep inside of me
Like Happiness is a deft and touching coming of age story that resists easy answers to very thorny questions-about sexual consent and power, about fame and persona, about making and loving art.
What I'd like to know is, how is it possible that this book - with the perfect portrayal of a self-aware yet lost protagonist and a storyline that generates every emotion while making you want to throw the book across the room - is a debut?
Like Happiness is a stunning swirl of a coming of age novel about power, manipulation, and complicity. In Tatum, Ursula Villarreal-Moura has created an eminently relatable character. Readers will connect to her love of books, her complicated relationships, and the different ways she grapples with understanding herself--in relation to class, sexuality, race, and family ties. This is the start of a brilliant career.
An epic unraveling of every love story trope, reclaimed as something sharp, seething, unsettling, and true. Yes, this has page flipping plot momentum, but it's also a whip smart critique of race in America, art making in the age of neoliberal 'feminism,' and the crushing humor of trying to exist as a quiet person with big wants
Expertly written with striking intimacy and heartbreaking clarity, Like Happiness accomplishes a profound emotional electrocution that will leave you floating lighter for days
Her emotionally astute novel offers a moving perspective on the different kinds of victims abusers leave in their wake. Memorable and incisive, this debut grapples elegantly with the complexity of betrayal
A moving portrait of the vulnerabilities of young womanhood
A quick but consuming read, Like Happiness is elegant, complex, and altogether familiar
There's not much I love more than a protagonist needing to reckon with their past, especially when it means trying to understand it from an older, healthier perspective, and that's exactly what Ursula Villareal-Moura's novel promises to offer
This compelling read delves into the idealism of youth, the harsh lesson of learning whom to trust, and the complexities of self-actualization
[A] subtle and satisfying narrative. This leaves readers with much to chew on
Imagine writing a letter to your favourite author and not only does he write back, but you also begin a complicated relationship with him? Well that's the premise of Like Happiness. 10 years after the relationship begins however, the novel's protagonist is shocked to discover a slew of allegations that will upturn everything she thought she knew about this intoxicating relationship.
In this debut novel, Tatum Vega, living a fulfilling life in Chile with her partner Vera, finds her past resurfacing when a reporter contacts her about allegations of abuse against the renowned author M. Domínguez, with whom she had an incredibly complicated relationship.
Seamlessly alternating between these two timelines, Villarreal-Moura writes with stunning emotional clarity about sexual identity, art and marginalization, and the ways control can masquerade as love
URSULA VILLARREAL-MOURA is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling, selected by Zinzi Clemmons as the Gold Line Press Fiction Contest Winner. A graduate of Middlebury College, she received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and was a VONA/Voices fellow. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, a Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for Best American Short Stories in 2015.
Deeply felt and achingly intimate, I couldn't put it down. I feel like it scoured something deep inside of me
Like Happiness is a deft and touching coming of age story that resists easy answers to very thorny questions-about sexual consent and power, about fame and persona, about making and loving art.
What I'd like to know is, how is it possible that this book - with the perfect portrayal of a self-aware yet lost protagonist and a storyline that generates every emotion while making you want to throw the book across the room - is a debut?
Like Happiness is a stunning swirl of a coming of age novel about power, manipulation, and complicity. In Tatum, Ursula Villarreal-Moura has created an eminently relatable character. Readers will connect to her love of books, her complicated relationships, and the different ways she grapples with understanding herself--in relation to class, sexuality, race, and family ties. This is the start of a brilliant career.
An epic unraveling of every love story trope, reclaimed as something sharp, seething, unsettling, and true. Yes, this has page flipping plot momentum, but it's also a whip smart critique of race in America, art making in the age of neoliberal 'feminism,' and the crushing humor of trying to exist as a quiet person with big wants
Expertly written with striking intimacy and heartbreaking clarity, Like Happiness accomplishes a profound emotional electrocution that will leave you floating lighter for days
Her emotionally astute novel offers a moving perspective on the different kinds of victims abusers leave in their wake. Memorable and incisive, this debut grapples elegantly with the complexity of betrayal
A moving portrait of the vulnerabilities of young womanhood
A quick but consuming read, Like Happiness is elegant, complex, and altogether familiar
There's not much I love more than a protagonist needing to reckon with their past, especially when it means trying to understand it from an older, healthier perspective, and that's exactly what Ursula Villareal-Moura's novel promises to offer
This compelling read delves into the idealism of youth, the harsh lesson of learning whom to trust, and the complexities of self-actualization
[A] subtle and satisfying narrative. This leaves readers with much to chew on
Imagine writing a letter to your favourite author and not only does he write back, but you also begin a complicated relationship with him? Well that's the premise of Like Happiness. 10 years after the relationship begins however, the novel's protagonist is shocked to discover a slew of allegations that will upturn everything she thought she knew about this intoxicating relationship.
In this debut novel, Tatum Vega, living a fulfilling life in Chile with her partner Vera, finds her past resurfacing when a reporter contacts her about allegations of abuse against the renowned author M. Domínguez, with whom she had an incredibly complicated relationship.
Seamlessly alternating between these two timelines, Villarreal-Moura writes with stunning emotional clarity about sexual identity, art and marginalization, and the ways control can masquerade as love
URSULA VILLARREAL-MOURA is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling, selected by Zinzi Clemmons as the Gold Line Press Fiction Contest Winner. A graduate of Middlebury College, she received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and was a VONA/Voices fellow. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, a Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for Best American Short Stories in 2015.