I really liked this book because there were a lot of traits I ascribe to myself that I saw in Gretchen and her writing. I was especially able to relate to her love of reading and how that affects the rest of her life. This book provided me with the inspiration and the determination to plan out a happiness project of my own, a lot of which focuses on better living habits, not necessarily happiness. However, I'm going to make myself sleep on it before I dive into planning. I think it takes quite a bit of courage to write about daily failures and to honestly assess how she did at keeping her resolutions. Gretchen provides a lot of scientific research in her account and she throws in some thought-provoking quotes by some of the greatest thinkers of all time, which goes to show how much she thought about what she was doing. One of the things that she pointed out that really resonated with me is that each day she has to wake up and choose her actions, to choose to be happy; she's never going to be able to perfectly keep her resolutions, but she feels happier for succeeding at several and making an attempt at others on a given day. I really like the format of her book, broken down by month and by resolution. And I love that she included a bibliography of some of the books she read in preparation for this project.

4.5 stars

I reread this book the other day. I feel like this time the relationship between each person's happiness resonated with me. If I'm happy, my boyfriend will be happy and if he's happy I'm happy. And, further, doing good things makes me happy, me being happy makes me do more good things. Happiness is a cycle and it is contagious. On my rereading, I was able to identify more specific ways that I can increase my personal happiness and a lot of it has to do with my attitude towards and interactions with other people. I'm glad I reread this.