If It Makes You Happy

by Claire Kann

June 4, 2019 · Swoon Reads

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This was my most anticipated book of 2019, and I was terrified that it wouldn’t live up to my expectations. I adored Kann’s debut, Let’s Talk About Love, and number 96 on my list of why is how body positive it was. When I saw her next book had a chubby heroine, tendrils of hope grew that this might be an author who could write fat characters well. In that regard, If It Makes You Happy exceeded my hopes. I have never read a book about a fat Black queer girl that felt as complex, layered, and authentic. While the primary romance is m/f, the story is embued with queer references. This is the book I desperately wish I’d had access to as a teenager. Reading it was what I imagine a private Lizzo concert might be; absorbing, revealing, and bad ass.

Warning: the absolute worst thing about this book is the title because every time I picked it up, Sheryl Crow’s 1990s hit lodged itself in my brain.

Winnie is a high school senior who has mapped out her future—getting a hospitality degree, taking over her grandma’s diner, continuing her platonic relationship with “ungirlfriend” Kara, and falling in love with someone else in the far-off future. For Winnie’s last summer before college, she wants to do all her favorite things in the small town of Merry Haven. At the top of her list, working at the family diner with precocious baby brother Winston and flaky cousin Sam/Samantha. She’s overjoyed at her flashy new title, Co-Assistant Manager, and how it enables her to smack down entitled customers. It also allows her to assign herself deliveries to Dallas, a high school basketball player and her secret crush.

Winnie’s summertime plans derail when her name ends up in the hat to be Merry Haven’s annual Summer Queen, and Dallas and Kara both volunteer to battle it out for the right to be her official consort. Since the contest has a long history of participants falling in love, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The result feels like the triwizard tournament meets The Bachelorette. If Kara wins, Winnie can relax knowing her friend will help her make a summer of queenly appearances more palatable. If Dallas wins, she’ll have to confront her hope that he wants to be more than friends. Either way, how will Winnie navigate the antipathy between the two people she cares most about?

I worried this would turn into a popular boy deigns to date nerd plot. Instead, Dallas has his own geeky tendencies and seems blissfully unaware of any difference between his and Winnie’s social ranking. The main romantic conflict is Winnie trying to ascertain his intentions, while Dallas figures out whether he can deal with Kara.

In many ways, Dallas is an idealized heartthrob. His parents are wealthy and semi-famous, a French singer and an American football player. He’s gorgeous, effortlessly charming, and happy using that charm to help Winnie surmount her terror of public speaking. He spends much of the book trying to convince her that yes, he’s truly fascinated by her. He’s also self-deprecating, a Korean skincare aficionado, and barely interested in sports beyond acknowledging that his scholarship will allow him to pursue other interests.

“My grandpa played baseball. My dad played football. My mom’s side of the family is full of athletes, too. I was literally born to be good at sports. The only reason why I have all these things in the first place is because collective someones decided my type of physicality is worth rewarding.”

I’ve read several romances with asexual characters, but this was my first with a major aromantic character, Kara. She’s been burned before by friends who ghosted her for boys, a common preoccupation of lovelorn lesbians and one that made me empathize with her. I love reading about chosen families and appreciated how Winnie and Kara’s friendship was depicted as primary, meaningful, emotionally intense, and very queer. They were truly each other’s person, while leaving room for Winnie to also find a romantic connection with someone else.

While Kara might know in theory that Winnie wants a romantic relationship, accepting it is another matter. Kara responds to Dallas’s interest in Winnie as though their relationship is in existential peril.

I think Kara will be a polarizing figure for readers. She’s a Difficult Woman™ who both literally and indirectly distracts us from sinking into Winnie and Dallas’ feelings for one another. However, the emotional heft of her friendship with Winnie was irresistible. Kara is a talented baker who makes special treats for gluten-free Winnie and there is no better way to my heart than detailed baking descriptions and characters who show their love with sweets.

Winnie can be snarky and vulnerable but her best quality is her anger. Never irrationally ragey, she’s protective of people she cares about, including herself, and doesn’t hesitate to neatly take down someone who deserves it. Her most memorable target is a fatphobic doctor who makes the mistake of condescendingly lecturing her on her weight, receiving an epic rant for his trouble. Afterward, Winnie is criticized for her outburst by family and neighbors but crucially, she does not change in response. If anything, by the end of the book she’s learned to set even clearer boundaries. She remains unapologetic in her righteous anger, and I loved every moment of it.

I also adored the representation of Winnie’s close-knit family. Her cousin Sam was raised as a sibling, and cluelessly guilts Winnie into joining her daily runs. She’s that relative you love but who fails to notice your lack of interest in their obsessions. Winnie’s brother engages her in loving banter while helping to fight against the constraints of their grandmother’s expectations. Granny is an irascible matriarch who loves her granddaughter but tries to bend her to her will with directives, a diet, and the silent treatment. Much of her behavior felt rooted in respectability politics, worry for Winnie’s survival in an unforgiving world, and a fear of losing control over her family. I found her fascinating and painfully realistic. Granny and her boyfriend need their own book. Meanwhile, Winnie’s parents are compassionate, fiercely protective and funny. They struggle to understand her sexual orientation and later, Kara and Winnie’s non-exclusive queerplatonic relationship.

“My mom had seen Kara give me the ring and thought she had proposed to me. Queer had become lesbian faster than I could say, “No. I haven’t even graduated yet. Why would I get married right now?”

“We had explained our word, ungirlfriend, and all my mom had said was, and I quote, “Oh. That sounds nice.”

Later that night, I’d overheard her talking to my dad. He didn’t sound angry. They were arguing—but in a bewildered sort of way. “But do you understand it?”

“No! We’ll figure it out!”

“I tried to look it up,” he said. “I even asked Twitter. No one knows what that means. How are we supposed to support her if we don’t know what it is?”

“You didn’t see her face. This is important to her. This cannot be like last time. That’s your daughter—she’s just like you and she’s only going to give us so many chances. She has to feel like she can come to us or she’ll stop doing it.” She huffed. “I just want her to have a better relationship with us than I did with my parents.”

“I know, honey. I know.” He sighed. “If this is what she feels like she needs, then that’s it. The end. We’ll ask questions and figure it out later.”

If It Makes You Happy’s main challenge is pacing. Compared to Kann’s previous book, this felt loosely plotted and sometimes devolved into a series of meandering scenes. The book is driven more by character development than plot. Imagine your witty aunt whose tales involve digressions and opinionated vignettes, taking her time to get to the point of the story. This is my favorite type of relative, but in a novel, I want to be reassured that the storyteller is in control of where the story is going. Additional editing could have reorganized the story and considerably improved the flow. Yet there were few scenes I would have cut entirely. For example, here’s a 100% accurate but tangential conversation between Dallas and Winston about race in mainstream Fantasy:

“I’m so tired of Black people being slaves there, too,” Dallas continued. “That’s hard to read, you know? Obvious reasoning aside, it’s impossible to disconnect and just enjoy the story after that because I start thinking, what if the writer is secretly racist and I’m supporting them without knowing it? It just sits there in the back of my mind the entire time.”

“Yeah. Exactly,” Winston agreed.

“And would it kill writers to include literally anyone else? Jesus. I will never understand that one. America is huge, but only white and maybe Black people get to exist in our media? It’s fantasy! They can literally do whatever they want. But no.”

After Dallas is crowned Winnie’s Summer King (not really a spoiler since it’s mentioned in the blurb) the middle of the book sags. The characters remain compelling but the plot sputters as our focus splits between Winnie’s trust-building with Dallas and Kara, adorable dates, and Winnie’s power struggles with her grandmother. Winnie and Dallas’s romance felt overshadowed by family drama and Kara did not grovel enough for my taste. In a convoluted subplot, half of the characters enter a celebrity cooking contest à la Food Network Stars. We get a HFN, but some non-romance plot threads are left untied.

If It Makes You Happy was not the lighthearted YA romp I expected, but it was a beautiful, wise, and deeply healing book about Black girl magic, generational trauma, and love in many different forms. Sometimes, fat heroines have self-esteem issues that are overcome by the love of a man. This was not that book. Elsewhere, fat characters are living their best life and their size has zero impact on the story. This was not that book either. Instead, If It Makes You Happy acknowledges the difficulties of being a fat Black girl without letting Winnie be buried by others’ assumptions. I wish this book better juggled her romantic relationships to showcase and resolve them fully. However, as a coming of age character study that subverts mainstream representations of fatness and Blackness, this book is a success.