Happy Hour: A Novel

Happy Hour is a book that could easily be dismissed as a boozy, hedonistic memoir of a summer. Yet “being easily dismissed” is precisely what it’s about. In an interview with the literary site Hazlitt, Marlowe Granados describes her impulse to write it: “I always wanted to write a book from the perspective of the type of girls who are always being observed but never seem to be making their own observations.” Elsewhere, she characterizes it differently: “Gala and Isa,” the girls in question, “want to have some sort of legacy, to have had a say in how they are perceived.” One of the lessons of Happy Hour is that beauty and luxury are not the same as excess and decadence. Gala and Isa are party girls, but they’re not rich. They weave a brocade of gem-like moments in 2013 New York where others would swipe a credit card and forget. Their lives are not the cynical exploitation of men nor the punishment of vain, “superficial,” or desperate women. They want to savor their existence: “to savor,” Isa says, “is to hold something...for more than a moment, to linger and draw out its details. Sometimes you are far too hungry to wait, and things get lost.” So you write them down to remember what your life consisted of. Your book club question: what gives fun meaning for Isa and Gala? Don’t dismiss that question with an easy answer. Work through some of the others below.

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Published Sep 7, 2021

288 pages

Average rating: 6

15 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

jess.withbooks
Jun 05, 2025
6/10 stars
“Sometimes making bad decisions really takes no time at all. In fact, you realize you've been itching to do it all along. Deep down, I think it comes from being so angry at having to restrict yourself all the time. Because in the end, no matter how well you behave, someone will always dash your life's work away with little to no regard. We are always swimming against the tide. How's that for justice? If I am reckless, it is because I am tired.”
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This is a perfect book to read when you want to reminisce about—or are currently in—the stage of life where you drink too much and have too many casual acquaintances, yet sadly never have enough money to feel financially stable beyond the next few days.

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