From Goodreads: She ached for him. She longed for him. She missed the way he made her feel and how funny and smart and sexy she felt with him. And young. She missed the version of herself that she had left behind.At thirty-eight, Lizzie Quealy thinks she has things sorted: a happy relationship, a couple of gorgeous kids, a steadfast best friend and a career she loves. But when Lizzie bumps into Tom, an old flame from her globe-trotting twenties, her life begins to unravel.Tom is her 'unfinished business': the man she might have spent her life with, if things had gone a little bit differently. Ten years on, the spark is still there – but how far is Lizzie prepared to go to recapture it, and at what cost?Set in Melbourne, London and Bali, via Tokyo and the Trans-Siberian Express, The Happiness Show is a refreshingly honest story of love, fidelity and the messiness of second chances. Sexy and hilarious, it explores the rules and taboos of contemporary relationships – and what happens when they stand in the way of one woman's pursuit of happiness.
What I Thought: Hmmmm....not sure. It's not that I didn't enjoy this, but there is something about it that annoyed me and I'm not quite sure I can put my finger on it. Maybe it's my inability to truly understand why someone who is in a happy, stable, loving relationship is willing to risk it. If you do happen to come across your missed chance and it sends you into as big as a whirl as it did Lizzie, then I find it hard to buy that your current relationship is as wonderful as we are led to believe. And I cannot, no matter how hard I try, buy into it being ok to cheat on your partner - it's not - even if you are never caught.
Lizzie came across to me as selfish and willing to risk her marriage and friendships for a second chance at a earlier romance. If you don't take the book too seriously, then it's a fun, light holiday read. Other than that, I'm not a fan.
Challenges: Aussie Author challenge