Allison Diegel
It's back to the real world this week. Between hitting our favorite three-day reggae festival and then taking our teens with us to another totally amazing Dirty Heads show in Sparks, we have been up here living it up. I am tired, my body is sore, my wallet is empty and my house is a mess – but my heart is so full! Now its time to settle back into a routine, which includes reading and sharing a new book with all of you!
“Happy and You Know It” by Laura Hankin kicks off with Claire, a former child piano prodigy whose career completely blew up in a headline-making scandal years ago. She’s trying to keep a low profile and pay the bills, which leads her to take a ridiculously niche job: the resident musician for "Little Hands," an ultra-exclusive playgroup in Manhattan. Think private, expensive, and filled with moms who define "wealthy and influential."
The playgroup is run by Whitney, who seems like the queen of effortless perfection — beautiful, charming, and radiating calm. But Claire, an outsider looking in, quickly realizes that this serene atmosphere is a total facade. Beneath the surface, the moms are super competitive, deeply anxious, and paranoid, all trying desperately to maintain this flawless image of perfect motherhood.
The biggest source of drama in the group is an anonymous, incredibly popular blog called "The Watcher." This blog is the collective nightmare of the Little Hands set because it spills all their biggest secrets, their social faux pas, and even their emotional meltdowns. It’s wildly entertaining for everyone else, but for these stressed-out socialites, it’s a constant threat that someone is recording their every failure.
Claire, hired to play music, finds herself becoming the reluctant sleuth. She realizes the blog isn't just random gossip; it's a weapon being strategically deployed, and she starts to suspect the author is one of the mothers — maybe even Whitney herself – using it for power and control. As Claire tries to unravel the mystery, she’s forced to confront the public shame and trauma from her own past, realizing the pressure to perform happiness is universal.
The story builds to an awesome climax where Claire uses her amazing musical memory to finally piece together the clues and expose the blogger's identity, shattering Whitney’s manipulative control over the group. The book is ultimately a hilarious and insightful takedown of the modern pressure cooker of motherhood and social status, with Claire finding a much more genuine path to happiness outside of the polished world of "Little Hands."
I hope you enjoy “Happy and You Know It” this week. Don't forget to pop over to my Instagram @allison.the.reader for more book recommendations and bookish fun.
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