{"id":4359,"date":"2017-04-16T01:49:04","date_gmt":"2017-04-16T05:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?p=4359"},"modified":"2017-04-16T01:49:04","modified_gmt":"2017-04-16T05:49:04","slug":"review-always-happy-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?p=4359","title":{"rendered":"Review: Always Happy Hour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.<\/p><div class=\"ubb-content-warning\">This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and\/or violence.<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/AlwaysHappyHour.jpg\" alt=\"Review: Always Happy Hour\" title=\"Review: Always Happy Hour\" class=\"ubb-cover-image alignleft\"><strong>Always Happy Hour: Stories<\/strong> by <a href=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?book-author=mary-miller\">Mary Miller<\/a> <br><strong>Published by<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?book-publisher=liveright\">Liveright<\/a> on January 10th 2017 <br><strong>Pages:<\/strong> 256 <br><strong>Format:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?book-format=earc\">eARC<\/a> <br><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?book-source=netgalley\">NetGalley<\/a> <br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Always-Happy-Hour-Mary-Miller\/dp\/1631492187\/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1492318689&sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\">Buy on Amazon<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/always-happy-hour-mary-miller\/1123956934\" target=\"_blank\">B&N<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/geo.itunes.apple.com\/us\/book\/always-happy-hour-stories\/id1126481355?mt=11&at=1000l9EE\" target=\"_blank\">iBooks<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2oM6q9R\" target=\"_blank\">Kobo<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.booksamillion.com\/p\/9781631492181\" target=\"_blank\">BAM<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bookdepository.com\/Always-Happy-Hour-Mary-Miller\/9781631492181\" target=\"_blank\">Book Depository<\/a> <br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/30231763-always-happy-hour\" target=\"_blank\">Goodreads<\/a> <br><span class=\"star_rating\"><i class=\"fa-solid fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-solid fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><\/span> <br><blockquote class=\"ubb-synopsis\"><p><b>Brazen and biting stories show Mary Miller reaching new heights following her \u201cbeautiful and large-hearted debut\u201d (NPR on The Last Days of California). <\/b><br \/>\nCombining 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.<br \/>\nClaustrophobic and lonesome, acerbic and magnetic, the women in Always Happy Hour seek understanding in the most unlikely places\u2014a dilapidated foster home where love is a liability, a trailer park laden with a history of bad decisions, and the empty corners of a dream home bought after a bitter divorce. Miller evokes the particular gritty comfort found in bad habits as hope turns to dust, and proves yet again her essential role in American fiction.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>        <script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n            {\n                \"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\n                \"@type\":\"Review\",\n                \"datePublished\": \"2017-04-16T05:49:04+00:00\",\n\t\"description\": \"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 \",\n\t\"publisher\": {\n\t\t\"@type\": \"Organization\",\n\t\t\"name\": \"Silk &amp; Serif\"            },\n            \"url\": \"http:\\\/\\\/silk-serif.com\\\/?p=4359\",\n\t\"itemReviewed\": {\n\t\t\"@type\": \"Book\",\n\t\t\"name\": \"Always Happy Hour: Stories\",\n\t\t\"author\": {\n\t\t\t\"@type\": \"Person\",\n\t\t\t\"name\": \"Mary Miller\",\n\t\t\t\"sameAs\": \"http:\\\/\\\/www.maryumiller.net\"            },\n            \"isbn\": \"1631492187\"            },\n            \"author\": {\n                \"@type\": \"Person\",\n                \"name\": \"Debbie\",\n\t\t\"sameAs\": \"http:\\\/\\\/silk-serif.com\\\/\"            },\n            \"reviewRating\": {\n                \"@type\": \"Rating\",\n                \"ratingValue\": 2,\n\t\t\"bestRating\": \"5\"\n\t}\n}\n\n\n        <\/script>\n        <p><strong><em>Always Happy Hour<\/em> seemed like the type of literature that would be insightful and thought provoking.<\/strong> I envisioned a novel about women who&#8217;s lives were a mess because of personal struggles or bad luck, perhaps even tales about these women overcoming their poor circumstances &#8211; 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. <strong>In retrospect, this may have been a novel about mental illness rather than a novel about young women struggling with normal life issues &#8211; and that&#8217;s okay &#8211; but this set of stories was not written for someone like me and my review will reflect that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>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. <em><strong>Always Happy Hour<\/strong><\/em> is about the later, rather than the former.<\/h2>\n<p><strong>It appears a majority of the women have substance abuse problems, issues with identifying physical or emotional abuse in their partners &#8211; or they identify the abuse and use drugs and alcohol to deal rather than leaving the abusive partner.<\/strong> There is also evidence of severe depression in the less &#8220;messed up&#8221; main characters, but throughout there is still a strong sense of judgement from these women towards the poor, the obese and the &#8220;ugly&#8221; which generally just pissed me off. If life sucks, don&#8217;t take it out on others. Everyone has their own struggles and judging others for purely physical or economic reasons really pushes my &#8220;anti-sympathy&#8221; 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.<\/p>\n<p>My secondary issue with this novel was the run on sentences. I am in no way a writing genius with perfect grammatical structure &#8211; but I can pinpoint a run on sentence. <strong><em>Always Happy Hour <\/em>is filled with run on sentences which the author could have meant to be stylistic in nature, but were actually extremely annoying. T<\/strong>he run on sentences on top of judgmental characters made it difficult to really enjoy this anthology. <strong>The synopsis utilized far too many euphemisms for what this novel is really about: seriously damaged individuals who aren&#8217;t interested in self-improvement or women with serious mental illnesses. <\/strong>I went into this novel expect spunky and fun characters, but got something else entirely.<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>So, the moral of this review is: this book tricked me into thinking it was something its not. <em>Always Happy Hour<\/em> is not happy &#8211; it is depressing, frustrating and difficult. It wasn&#8217;t for me, but the cover is certainly pretty.<\/h2>\n<p>This novel will appeal to readers who enjoy anthologies about flawed individuals, novels about sad\/dark subjects. <strong>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.<\/strong> 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&#8217;t mind reading sad or intense stories with very little closure.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"ubb-final-rating\"><span class=\"star_rating\"><i class=\"fa-solid fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-solid fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"ubb-about-author\">\n<h3>About Mary Miller<\/h3>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/MaryMiller-120x80.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"alignleft ubb-about-author-photo\"><\/p>\n<p>Big World, The Last Days of California, Always Happy Hour<\/p>\n<p>Stories in McSweeney&#8217;s Quarterly, American Short Fiction, New Stories from the South, Oxford American, Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, Indiana Review, and Mississippi Review.<\/p>\n<p>Nonfiction in the NYTBR, American Book Review, The Rumpus, and The Writer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ubb-author-links\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.maryumiller.net\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Website<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/2855819.Mary_Miller\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Always Happy Hour seemed like the type of literature that would be insightful and thought provoking. I envisioned a novel about women who&#8217;s lives were a mess because of personal struggles or bad luck, perhaps even tales about these women overcoming their poor circumstances &#8211; not a set of tales about women who are generally [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[261,56,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anthologies","category-review","category-uncategorized","book-author-mary-miller","book-publisher-liveright","book-genre-anthology","book-genre-contemporary","book-genre-contemporary-women","book-genre-fiction","book-genre-general","book-source-netgalley","book-format-earc","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4359"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6292,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions\/6292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}