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Happy All the Time

4.01 of 5 stars 4.01 · rating details · 972 ratings · 148 reviews

This delightful comedy of manners and morals is about romantic friendship, romantic marriage, and romantic love--about four people who are good-hearted and sane, lucky and gifted, and who find one another. Knowing that happiness is an art form that requires energy, discipline, and talent, Guido, Holly, Vincnt, and Misty deal with jealousy, estrangement, and other perils in...more

Paperback, 224 pages

Published June 1st 2000 by Harper Perennial (first published 1978)

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Mar 14, 2013 John McAndrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's been years since I read this book, but it has stayed with me all this time, and I'm thinking it may be time to re-read it. It's a story about couples who get along and are "happy all the time." Sounds boring, right? That's because our concept of a happy relationship is both one-dimensional and an utter fantasy. These folks argue, have problems and crises . . . and get through them together, with a baseline of respect and affection for each other. Not easy, not Disneyfied, but real. If recen...more

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Jul 10, 2007 Joe Vallese rated it 4 of 5 stars

My experience reading this novel was really strange. When I was a senior in high school, I read a short story called "An Old Fashioned Romance" by Colwin in my AP class. I remember being struck, and a little disappointed, by how bright and optimistic the story was - up to that point, I'd understood stories as ominous and never happy. Then I read her author bio and it said that she graduated from Bard in the 70s and, I of course, was going to attend Bard that summer. Long story short, I was alway...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Kathleen Valentine marked it as to-read

Laurie Colwin cracks me up. She is so witty. After a hard night of drinking Vincent wakes up in the wrong bed and reluctantly turns to see who else is there. Colwin writes, "Realization settled over him like a noose." LOL!

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Dec 27, 2012 Catherine Egan rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a fun, witty, light-hearted book. I breezed through it, laughed lots, and found the writing and the humor just as delightful as in Laurie Colwin's wonderful novel Goodbye Without Leaving.
It's basically a very sunny love story (or, two very sunny love stories), and very well done, but served as a reminder that I am not a romantic. A book that centers on a two couples falling in love and getting married and being adorable and happy isn't really for me.

That said, I did like a great many th...more This is a fun, witty, light-hearted book. I breezed through it, laughed lots, and found the writing and the humor just as delightful as in Laurie Colwin's wonderful novel Goodbye Without Leaving.
It's basically a very sunny love story (or, two very sunny love stories), and very well done, but served as a reminder that I am not a romantic. A book that centers on a two couples falling in love and getting married and being adorable and happy isn't really for me.

That said, I did like a great many things about the book. I like Laurie Colwin's writing. She writes perfect sentences, and is funny without seeming to try too hard. I loved all the minor characters, who made me laugh and laugh. Stanley in particular was very funny, leaving out all the w's when he typed up letters for Guido and writing them in afterwards, to keep himself from getting bored. I also really enjoyed the intricate descriptions of rooms, meals, clothes, objects. Laurie Colwin clearly believes that clothes and apartment decor are crucial elements of character-building.

I was less entertained by the rather pat and predictable love stories, and the boring(ish) male protagonists. While I thoroughly enjoyed the prickly heroine of Goodbye Without Leaving getting in the way of her own happiness and struggling to find an authentic way to "be", this book felt a bit like a prickly girl's fantasy: two solid, intelligent, nice guys fall madly in love with two difficult and complicated women. These guys are perfectly devoted, the women are eventually won over, and bliss follows for everyone. That element of Goodbye Without Leaving was its weakest point, I thought (though never quite as simple as in this book), and this story has little else on offer.

I was thinking about how the female characters are so much more interesting, and the men sort of bumbling, adoring foils, and figured that perhaps writing in the early seventies, that was a nice counterpoint to John Updike or something. And it is nice, I suppose, to read something so cheerful and hopeful, a book that believes, apparently, in the idea of a truly happy marriage for very prickly and difficult women. There is no shortage of books on offer dealing with disintegrating marriages, or unhappy relationships. I don't think it is any kind of flaw, in the book, to give a rosy view of happy couples.

So perhaps I should just say that Laurie Colwin is a very good writer, and this is a very good book, if you like a well-written and funny love story. I don't know what it says about me that I don't, but there we are.

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Dec 13, 2012 Nancy McKibben rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: readers who love a smart novel written by a smart, generous writer

Recommended to Nancy by: after I read a book of her short stories, I sought out and read all her novels

Shelves: favorites, reviewed

Happy All the Time
By Laurie Colwin

I love Laurie Colwin. I suppose it’s more accurate to say that I love her books, but she is one of those authors whom you feel you know through her books, especially as she wrote several books of food essays as well as five novels and two books of short stories. Unhappily, she died in 1992 when she was only in her early forties, and the tributes written by her readers (you can find them on the web) show how greatly she is missed.

Happy All the Time begins like th...more Happy All the Time
By Laurie Colwin

I love Laurie Colwin. I suppose it’s more accurate to say that I love her books, but she is one of those authors whom you feel you know through her books, especially as she wrote several books of food essays as well as five novels and two books of short stories. Unhappily, she died in 1992 when she was only in her early forties, and the tributes written by her readers (you can find them on the web) show how greatly she is missed.

Happy All the Time begins like this:

“Guido Morris and Vincent Cardworthy were third cousins. No one remembered which Morris had married which Cardworthy, and no one cared except at large family gatherings when this topic was introduced and subjected to the benign opinions of all. Vincent and Guido had been friends since babyhood. They had been strolled together in the same pram and as boys were often brought together, either at the Cardworthy house in Petrie, Connecticut, or at the Morris’s in Boston to play marbles, climb trees, and set off cherry bombs in trash cans and mailboxes. As teenagers, they drank beer in hiding and practiced smoking Guido’s father’s cigars, which did not make them sick, but happy. As adults, they both loved a good cigar.”

Now in their late twenties, Guido and Vincent both find the loves of their lives in the pages of this novel, which is largely what the book is about - the unexpected complexities and delights of love. Perhaps I like these books because love is a marvel to the author and her characters - they are alternately baffled and elevated by their feelings, but they never fall into the clichés of the romance genre.

After making love to his eventual wife, Holly, for the first time, “Guido felt quite wiped out by sensation. Everything seemed uncommonly rich to him: the print on the sheets, the pattern on the quilt, Holly’s gleaming hair and earrings.” Holly herself “was an only child, an only grandchild, and she was nearly perfect. She had her own ways, Holly did. She decanted everything into glass and on her own long kitchen shelves were row upon row of jars containing soap, pencils, cookies, salt, tea, paper clips, and dried beans.”

Vincent’s love interest is quite different. Misty Berkowitz thinks of herself as a sea urchin: prickly on the outside to hide her soft, mushy interior, but she is unable to resist Vincent. “Now, as she walked slowly back to her office, the world looked askew. Intelligence had nothing to do with this at all. The jig was up. She was in love.”

This is such an enjoyable book to read. The characters are intelligent and quirky, they have interesting and unusual jobs and witty conversations, and they still feel like real people. The author loved life and I always finish her novels - and any of her writing - feeling both intellectually stimulated and emotionally mellowed.
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Sep 16, 2012 Susan rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-getting-lost-in-a-comfortable, 2012-new-author-challenge, 2012-reading-challenge-addict, 2012-support-your-local-library-cha

Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin is an offbeat story of friendship, love and relationships between 4 eccentric individuals, set in mid-1970s Cambridge MA and New York City.

Guido Morris and Vincent Cardworthy are third cousins, lifelong friends in their late twenties.

"At college they fooled around, spent money, and wondered what would become of them when they grew up. Guido intended to write poetry in heroic couplets and Vincent thought he might eventually win the Nobel Prize for physics."

Gu...more

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Jul 22, 2012 christa rated it 4 of 5 stars

There are some writers who are good enough to disregard plot in favor of a collection of quirky characters slinging each other with cute conversation. See also: Laurie Colwin, whose 1978 novel Happy All the Time is simply the story of third cousins tip-toeing from bachelorhood to couplehood and the difficult targets who change everything they believe to be true about women. What, in theory, could reek of a banter-y rom-com with a “Gilmore Girls” preciousness is smart and lively and potentially s...more There are some writers who are good enough to disregard plot in favor of a collection of quirky characters slinging each other with cute conversation. See also: Laurie Colwin, whose 1978 novel Happy All the Time is simply the story of third cousins tip-toeing from bachelorhood to couplehood and the difficult targets who change everything they believe to be true about women. What, in theory, could reek of a banter-y rom-com with a “Gilmore Girls” preciousness is smart and lively and potentially something that might have inspired the writer Charles Baxter -- the last person I decided could write whatever the hell he wanted.

Guido is a romantic, tapped to run the family’s nonprofit arts organization. He meets Holly outside of a museum and goes gaga for her in the least subtle way, describing her for Vincent as though she was a piece from one of the collections inside. She doesn’t find this cute. They continue to cross paths and eventually she agrees to go out with him. Holly is light on emoting and poor Guido never really knows where he stands with her. When he asks her to marry him, she goes away for a week to remove herself from the situation and gain some perspective. Though she promises to return to him, he ends up wandering around sullen with a stained aura.

Vincent is slower to find a life partner and instead has a series of not-so serious relationships with unavailable women, hearty women, women who love horses. He meets Misty while working at a think tank: him in garbage, her in linguistics. Her only romantic experience has left her soul scabbed over and he is forced to take a friends first approach and woo her first slowly, then suddenly. Like Holly, she eventually cracks.

On the sidelines are a slew of caricatures including a super efficient secretary and a hippie, vibe-feeling fill-in secretary, uncles and aunts with colorful pasts, a vegetarian dancer, and another cousin who gives Misty a bit of a core shake.

Colwin’s strength is bursts of hilarious dialoge. When Vincent buys flowers for Misty, he says to the seller: “Give me something that looks like the thing they hang on prize-winning horses.” During another scene the crew is dining at a vegetarian-friendly restaurant and Vincent says, holding up a vegetable punctured with holes, “Do you eat this or did it fall off someone’s shoe?”

Storywise, you get something akin to watching Sims characters wander between home and work and dinner parties. It’s very light on conflict and there is a sense that all will end well. Instead of dips and valleys there are a series of speed bumps one’s tail bone would barely even register. Still, it feels so good to read it, even if it does trap your face in dopey grin mode.(less)

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Aug 30, 2010 Pamela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I picked up my copy of Happy All the Time and saw the sad girl peeling pears on the cover, I was like, "Here we go. Time to delve into the depressing inner lives of searching young adults." Having just finished a few Lorrie Moore stories from Birds of America, I was sure that the title of Colwin's novel was ironic.

IT SURE ISN'T!

Two couples meet cute, quip, and live happily ever after. Seriously.

I'm not immune to a charming narrative like this. The conversational wit sparkles on the page w...more

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Aug 12, 2010 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: good-uns

Last month Old school librarian suggested I read HAPPY ALL THE TIME by Laurie Colwin. I had not heard of the book or the author before and was very interested to discover what was in store. Fortunately, my local library had a copy readily available. Originally published back in 1978, HAPPY ALL THE TIME was the third of Colwin's five novels. Along with a few short story and cooking collections, those novels made up the bulk of her writing. It seems strange now that I'd never heard of her before a...more Last month Old school librarian suggested I read HAPPY ALL THE TIME by Laurie Colwin. I had not heard of the book or the author before and was very interested to discover what was in store. Fortunately, my local library had a copy readily available. Originally published back in 1978, HAPPY ALL THE TIME was the third of Colwin's five novels. Along with a few short story and cooking collections, those novels made up the bulk of her writing. It seems strange now that I'd never heard of her before as her novels have none of them ever gone out of print and it appears she still has quite a large and devoted following. A fact I completely understand and that makes me quite happy now, having read this perfectly delightful novel. Thank goodness for others' book recommendations, for I am quite sure I would never have stumbled across this treat of a book on my own.

Guido Morris. Holly Sturgis. Vincent Cardworthy. Misty Berkowitz. These are the rather enchanting names of the four principal players in our little drama. Guido and Vincent have been cousins and best friends since as far back as either of them can remember. Gifted with both privilege and personality, talent and wit, the two men have somehow managed to make it past graduate school and into bona fide adulthood without ever forming permanent or lasting attachments with members of the opposite sex. But all of that is about to change when they walk past a young woman with black hair and a composed face, sitting on a bench, and Guido falls instantly and madly in love. But Holly is not looking for love and Guido finds himself in the unfamiliar agony of being in love with someone who appears all but indifferent to him. Meanwhile, Vincent is coming to terms with his scattered and perplexing love life the hard way. Unsure of how to change things, he walks into the office one day and meets Misty Berkowitz, a cantankerous young woman of Jewish extraction who loathes and distrusts everything Vincent represents. And--just like Guido--Vincent is gone in one fell swoop. But like the lovely Holly (even though the two women are night and day incarnate), Misty has no interest in being wooed. What are these two earnest young men to do in order to convince the loves of their lives that they are, in fact, meant for each other?

Readers, I was utterly charmed by this book. It is a slim, unassuming volume to be sure. But within its pages is true loveliness. HAPPY ALL THE TIME reads like Annie Hall and one of those old Cary Grant/Katherine Hepburn confections had a lovechild. There was just no way I was escaping its spell. The emotions are high and fraught with meaning, the witty banter is sophisticated in the extreme, and the costumes are elegant and timeless. Here's one of my favorite interactions between the likable Vincent and the irascible Misty:

Misty woke abruptly and felt awful. She groped around for her glasses, couldn't find them, and sat very still, looking unfocused and bereft, as if she had awakened from a kind dream to find merciless and cruel reality waiting for her. Vincent thought he understood unhappiness, but he was not sure if this was it. He sat beside her and took her hand.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" he said. "I can't bear to see you this way."

She shrugged her shoulders.

Vincent asked, "Does it help if I tell you I love you, or does it make it worse?"

She began to cry. It was the second time in two days, but its effect on Vincent was not dimmed by repetition.

"Okay," she said. "Here goes."

His heart seemed to stop. This was it, but what was it?

"It's not what you're thinking," said Misty, looking at his stricken face. "It's worse. You're stuck with me. This is your last chance to bail out, Vincent. I don't think we were made for each other. Maybe you were made for me, but I was made for Attila the Hun."

"Are you telling me that life with you will be a living hell?"

"I am giving you one last chance to go off and find some nicer girl," said Misty. "Someone who knows her way around a sailboat."

"That's a disgusting thing to say. Last week you gave me a very compelling analysis on the workings of my stunning intellect. Now I'm supposed to take my intellect off and go sailing?"

And besides that, there's the Jewish question," said Misty.

"Oh, that," said Vincent. "I don't notice either of us being religious. Besides, my Aunt Marcia is Jewish. She married Uncle Walter. She's everybody's favorite relative. What's the big deal?"

"Our backgrounds are different," said Misty.

"This is not worth discussing," said Vincent. "We've done very well up till now, and we'll continue to do well."

"I'm not like your other flames," said Misty. "I don't know anything about dog breeding."

"Yes, you do," said Vincent. "The night we were comparing eccentric relatives, you told me that your Aunt Harriet wanted to cross Welsh corgis and Doberman pinschers and get a vicious but barkless guard dog for sneak attacks. That will be quite sufficient. Throw in my Aunt Marcia and you can see that we are ideally suited."

Tears slid out of the corners of Misty's eyes. She put her arms around his neck.

"I'm just scared," she said. "That's all."

"That isn't all," said Vincent. "What are you scared of?"

"I don't know."

"What else don't you know?"

That's all," said Misty.

"I assume that means that you have given a good deal of analytical thought to your feelings about me."

"My feelings about you appear to transcend analysis."

"Wonderful," said Vincent. "What are they?"

"I just love you," she mumbled.

"Speak up, please," said Vincent.

"I said, I just love you. Isn't that banal?"

"What a relief," said Vincent, smiling.

Well? Don't you want to go and find this book right now? I love Vincent and Misty so much. All four of them are memorable and layered and funny and offbeat, but I ended up responding most of all to Misty. Must be that inherent awkwardness and the tendency to analyze the people around me in my head, rather than going up and talking to them that we share. Either way, Misty is a kindred spirit and I sat there rapt as she worked through her feelings and came to grips with the fact that she loved someone who appeared to be so wrong for her, someone who--deep down--she felt rather sure would up and walk away someday when he woke up and realized just who he'd married. In this book, it's not about what happens in the end, it's about how they each get there. And it's worth it, I tell you. It's light and lighthearted, told in elegant, if occasionally fussy prose, and it will lift your heart and leave you perfectly sated.(less)

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Aug 19, 2009 Jhoanna rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: cheery-reading

The ladies at the used bookstore up the street loved this writer. I'd never heard of her, but decided I had to check it out since the New York Times says "it abounds in good lines, aphorisms, advice to both the loved and the lovelorn."

It's more of a romp than a book, about two best friends who meet and marry the women of their dreams. Of course the women drive them crazy - one is a doer and feeler but not a talker, the other is a self-described porcupine. It was published in 1978 and it's a wond...more

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Jul 25, 2009 Deirdre Keating rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Deirdre by: Lori Pickert

Shelves: fiction

I wanted to love this one, but I can only muster liking it. I'm knee deep in Colwin this month, having just finished her Home Cooking and already started her short story collection (the Frank & Billy love story)---and I like both of those more than this novel.

Of course I adore a story of a pessimistic, neurotic girl who falls for an optimistic guy with a simple outlook on life;-) That story line all rang true. However his cousin, whom I liked, and his wife Holly, seemed anachronistic---did s...more

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Jan 28, 2011 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Colwin's "project" in this, and the other works of hers I've read, seems to revolve around picking up the story of love where most novelists leave off: she's interested in what happy marriages and established friendships look like. The conflict she's primarily concerned with is the resistance people have to contentment, and their fear of its loss. Happily, the characters struggling with accepting happiness are usually married (literally or figuratively) to characters who have a talent for enjoyi...more

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Nov 02, 2010 Eileen rated it 4 of 5 stars

If Laurie Colwin was actually her own image of Misty, then I'm sadder than ever that she's dead.

I can see people with a fierce desire for "plot" and "story" having a hard time with this, but the writing itself is so swift and good that I personally don't care. The point is not to complete some grand story; the point is that the story ("story") is continual and pervasive, happening and happening and happening. In some ways, this reads like a theatrical piece, with characters grouped into pairs or...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Catherine rated it 3 of 5 stars

This novel is about Guido and Vincent, third cousins and best friends, and their wives, Holly and Misty. It takes place over their respective courtships and first few years of marriage. The book was published in 1978 and, while it wasn’t clear exactly when the story takes place, it felt very late 1960s to me.

The characters seemed to sway from being uniquely original to being superficially all alike, and as an aside, it made me nuts that athletic women were stereotyped as vacuous. Still, I enjoy...more

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Feb 02, 2011 Andrea Blythe rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, favorites

This is a book about love happening between four generally good, intelligent, and interesting people. The men are good, genuine men, who love their women deeply. The women are smart, sassy, classy women. The story that unfolds is gentle and funny, a kind of comedy of manners in which the characters say clever things you wish you could think to say. The book transpires like a good relationship or marriage, there are moments of great happiness and there are moments of great sorrow or pain, but thr...more

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Sep 15, 2011 Amy (SpedBug) rated it 1 of 5 stars

Recommended to Amy (SpedBug) by: Antof9

Shelves: library-book, decided-not-to-finish-it

While I could have finished this had I soldiered on, I gave myself permission to abandon it. Life is too short to sludge through books you don't enjoy.

I don't know if it was someone else's comment that this book reminded them of a mix between The Great Gatsby and Breakfast at Tiffany's or just the vagaries of my own mind, but I kept thinking Happy All the Time was set somewhere in the 1920's to 1940's time period. Then, as I was reading, a comment about computers or something would remind me it...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Kim Fay rated it 5 of 5 stars

How is it that I have not reviewed this book before now? For many years, it was a tradition that for the first book of the new year, I would read "Happy All The Time." This story of two couples is so light-filled and nuanced and clever -- I simply take great pleasure in reading it and enjoy being reminded that life can be quite lovely, indeed. Laurie Colwin has a dry (and subtle wicked wit), which is what gives this novel its depth. Yes, the world portrayed in this book is sheltered, but sometim...more

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Apr 18, 2009 Kim rated it 5 of 5 stars

What I loved about this book is the main character is a male. He is a believable real male character, inasmuch he doesn't play to a type. He isn't macho or arrogant or proud, what he is is obsessed with a woman with ivory skin, whose sheets smell like lavender with hair like a sable paintbrush and earrings of coral. Holly is a character who is uncommon in literature. She is a self-sufficient married young woman, independently wealthy, who is also morbidly afraid of letting herself go. Loving Gui...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Erin Walsh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Brilliant and witty comedy of 4 friends who are utterly quirky and genuine as hell! I found Laurie Colwin via her fantastic books about cooking (non-fiction), but really love her voice so much and found her writing just as charming and compelling in this story.

Two parallel love stories are shown - one between Misty (intellectual pessimist) with Vincent (hapless optimist) and Holly (content introvert) with Guido (passionate befuddled lover who catches no breaks from Holly) - and it is also a sto...more

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Jan 11, 2010 Kenyon Harbison rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a generally happy book, about generally happy people. There is no gore, no death that people must cope with, no shocking revelation, I don't even think there is any infidelity or job loss. In short, there is none of the oft-contrived melodrama that drives many plots forward and that makes for cliched exclamatory jacket copy. The focus here is on the beauty of Colwin's language. Think of it almost as an extended narrative poem about happiness, demonstrating happiness, rather than as a nov...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Kathleen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first read this book a few months after I had a stillborn baby and was struggling with depression and the grief. The title of the book drew me in because I was so desperately unhappy at the time. I loved this book and the fact of my introduction to Laurie Colwin. I devoured each of her books as they were published, including Home Cooking. My favorite is probably Shine On Bright And Dangerous Object. I remember specifically where I was when I learned she had died. I felt like I had just lost a...more

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Jan 04, 2011 Angela rated it 4 of 5 stars

A lark of a book, Happy All the Time is as easy and breezy as a well-written sit-com. It's not funny, really (although there are some funny lines). More, it's simply light and pleasant. I admit that I thought the title was meant to be taken ironically and kept waiting for shoes to start dropping, but the title is literal: this is a book about people who wind up happy, if not all the time, than at least most of it. Whoda thought? Colwin's characters can come off as occasionally neurotic and/or se...more

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Apr 01, 2011 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Amy by: Claire Foster

This novel follows two oddly matched couples as they stumble toward happy marriages. Colwin’s novel feels old-fashioned for its willingness to have its characters truly listen to each other. Other aspects of the book seem passé, too, but I wish more writers would revive them. Colwin appreciates her characters and takes them seriously—she doesn’t create them solely to poke fun at them—and she allows them to achieve limited victories. The generous spirit she brings to writing the book makes it a p...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book and found it to be very beautiful, very original, and very, very funny. Colwin's comic timing is perfect. I agree with the reviewer who compared it to a narrative poem, and I liked another reviewer's tradition of re-reading this book every new year. Most good books that I read leave me with a feeling of sadness or loss; this book strangely left me feeling like I could finish the story in my own life, in my own time. This is my first Colwin book, and I am looking forward to read...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Dana rated it 5 of 5 stars

This little novel, is by far the happiest, most delightful little gem you will ever read. I read it, originally, in the late 1970's when it was written. I always remembered that I loved it, but had long forgotten the story and it's characters. I requested that my library find a copy for me, and luckily, they rounded one up from several counties away! I am smiling like a fool, having just now finished it again. There is no other novel I have ever read, and I believe I have read thousands in 50+ y...more This little novel, is by far the happiest, most delightful little gem you will ever read. I read it, originally, in the late 1970's when it was written. I always remembered that I loved it, but had long forgotten the story and it's characters. I requested that my library find a copy for me, and luckily, they rounded one up from several counties away! I am smiling like a fool, having just now finished it again. There is no other novel I have ever read, and I believe I have read thousands in 50+ years of life, that has left me beaming like an idiot. Colwin, who, sadly, died years ago at a young age, was such a gifted writer. Her characters are so well drawn, so real, so lovable even with their flaws, that the I wish I could be part of their inner circle and beautiful friendships.
Guido and Vincent are 2 good, decent, smart, witty guys who fall, in turn, for 2 quirky, resistant, but kind hearted women. Each couple find their way to a good life together. The cousins and their wives are friends and share so much, but also hold back. Guido's lovely wife, Holly, finds the need to withdraw from time to time, whether to Paris to be alone for a few weeks, or to a monastery to regroup for a bit, before heading back to their busy lives in NYC to embrace her married life once again. And Vincent, the son of wealthy New Englander's has to be the nicest of them all. He pursues and wins the heart of the very reluctant Misty, a Jewish girl who was also raised with great comfort but who seems to take on the weight of the world, worry about things which might happen, but which never do. Through Vincent, Misty learns to trust in love and to be...well HAPPY!
The couples, with some very interesting and funny cousins who come along to join the fray, delight in life as young adults in a world that is just now becoming a part of history. The mid to late 1970's were modern days (relative to the length of civilization) and yet there were no cell phones, no texting, no internet. They left each other notes, used pay phones, and couldn't be so terribly connected all the time, which can be a downside, for sure, to relationships and society these days. They heated milk on the stove to add to coffee to warm it up, because there were no microwave ovens in every apartment in NYC the way there are today. There was talk of this tool called a "calculator" and of recycling and reusing sludge to power a lawn mover, which I thought was very modern for that era. But mostly there is talk, and laughter and love that embraces you and makes YOU feel loved. Find a copy of this book. Hang onto it for 30 years and then re-read it. I wish I had kept my original copy. I can still picture it's cover and feel it's smoothness, but I must have loaned it to someone decades ago and never gotten it back. Keep this little gem as the antidote to all that ails or saddens you! It deserves 10 stars. I am STILL beaming and feel like skipping around the room from the joy in my heart. Thanks to Laurie Colwin for leaving this treasure behind. The world lost a great writer with her death!(less)

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Jul 27, 2011 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: No One

Shelves: literary-fiction, contemporary, novels, fiction, romance, chick-lit

I see almost nothing but raves about this book, many saying they've read it more than once. I have to say I don't get the appeal at all. Set in two places I have a lot of affection for, my native New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts, the novel could be set anywhere, not really giving a sense of place beyond a mention of Harvard Square or the Museum of Natural History. the novel follows two "third cousins" who have been best friends from infancy, Guido and Vincent, and their romances with a...more

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Aug 11, 2010 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

A thoughtful, surprising, genuine and touching story about four people who fall in love. Guido and Vincent are cousins and best friends. Guido falls for Holly and Vincent falls for Misty. So, not only is romantic love developing but the connected friendships need to develop, too, if they are going to be four pals rather than two friends and their awkwardly tolerated spouses.

What I appreciated about this story is that there are no huge disasters or tragedies. That doesn't mean that the character...more A thoughtful, surprising, genuine and touching story about four people who fall in love. Guido and Vincent are cousins and best friends. Guido falls for Holly and Vincent falls for Misty. So, not only is romantic love developing but the connected friendships need to develop, too, if they are going to be four pals rather than two friends and their awkwardly tolerated spouses.

What I appreciated about this story is that there are no huge disasters or tragedies. That doesn't mean that the characters are "happy all the time"--there is angst--worry and fear and doubt... but it's all pretty much self-imposed. And I think that rings so true to life--often times, we pin burdens on ourselves, sometimes unnecessarily, sometimes because we know that working through that will lead us to a better understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

***minor spoilers***
The message I took away from the story is: when you love someone, you have to allow them to love you back. You can't keep second-guessing, wondering *why* they love you, if you are good enough for them, if they will find someone they like better, etc. This is seen in the story of Vincent and Misty. Misty is the classic "glass is half empty" and waiting for something to go wrong; Vincent is an eternal optimist and floats through life with a smile. Misty worries that she is all wrong for Vincent (even though he clearly loves her) and she fears he will eventually want someone more like him. Another "message" in the story is that you cannot really define love, that if you try to, you'll miss the essence completely. This is seen in story of Guido and Holly; he loves her so much, but she is elusive to him in some ways--he sometimes can't understand her, wants to understand her, and fears that this lack of understanding is a flaw in their relationship; until he learns that he was trying to understand her from his own way of looking at things, rather than trying to see things through her eyes. And that he doesn't have to understand her perfectly in any sort of quantifiable terms in order to love her.

Ultimately, this book wasn't quite what I was hoping for. I wanted a cozy, snuggle-up-with-hot-chocolate sort of read. The sort of story where, from page one, you feel all snug and secure and know that there will be sunshine and radiance everywhere. Maybe I was just reading the story with a "Misty" view, rather than a "Vincent" one, because I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and squish away a happy ending. But, even though I didn't get a breezy, musical-comedy PG Wodehouseian sort of comfort read, I am still very glad I read this. I appreciated the thoughtful look at humanity, at love and friendship, and at what it takes to live our life so that we can be "happy all the time" (or, at least, most of it!)
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Dec 28, 2012 Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars

I think I looked for this book because Anne Lamott loved it. I'll have to look up the NYT Book Review to see exactly what she said.

I found it amusing, charming, worth some chuckles, and in some ways like Jane Austin set in New York City in the late 70s. The men pursue the women, the women are reluctant, but love wins out in the end. It's not like Jane Austin in that the lovers go to bed together long before they declare love and accept the idea of marriage.

One little irritation--a brand new be...more

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May 15, 2013 Marissa Morrison rated it 2 of 5 stars

This novel is populated by characters who are so wealthy that they collect graduate degrees they'll never have to use and so unstressed that they set schedules for reading the newspaper and watering plants.

There are two couples. By the time I quit this snoozer at the halfway mark, one couple was falling in love. The other couple felt so contented after three years of marriage that the wife took off for two weeks in Europe just to stir up a sense of estrangement.

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Sep 04, 2012 Sara rated it 5 of 5 stars

A pretty perfect vacation read. This book isn't particularly plot heavy or filled with beautiful language but it captivates almost solely on its sustained pleasantness. It's just lovely to spend time with these people and watch them stumble towards love, like watching a romantic comedy from the 30's or 40's when the dialogue was tight and the leads actually had chemistry. I see myself revisiting this many times over the years to come, whenever I need a reminder that things will probably turn out...more

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About Laurie Colwin

Laurie Colwin is the author of five novels: Happy All the Time, Family Happiness, Goodbye Without Leaving, Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object, and A Big Storm Knocked It Over; three collections of short stories: Passion and Affect, Another Marvelous Thing, and The Lone Pilgrim; and two collections of essays: Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. She died in 1992.

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