I Don’t Have a Happy Place: Cheerful Stories of Despondency and Gloom

When the very first anecdote in the book involves the drowning death of a friend’s foreign nanny (and how lucky that friend is to get that sort of attention afterward), you know you’re in for a unique read.

I Don’t Have a Happy Place is part memoir and part therapy session, as writer Kim Korson explores her penchant for finding the worst in every situation. In fact, she challenges the very notion that happiness is a sustainable or natural state for modern life. Between romantic misadventures, researching what wild animals are likely to kill her in a given geographical locale, and the anxiety of a Disney vacation, Kim’s writing is neurotic and funny and rarely far from the truth.

Although I’d recommend not reading it in one sitting—lest Kim’s almost majestic negativity burrow too deep into your psyche—I Don’t Have a Happy Place is the perfect antidote to the positive-thinking, just-believe narrative so many self-help books are shilling these days. (Oh, and for the record, Kim, nobody likes the game Monopoly.)