The Happy Endings Book Club by Jane Tara

Synopsis:
This Christmas, the women of The Happy Endings Book Club are about to uncover a world of love and magic as they discover how to have their own happy ending or beginning, as they’re often the same thing.

Once a month, seven very different women come together to discuss books. They all love a happy ending, but have lost sight of how to get their own. Paige misses glimpsing the magic in the world. Sadie doesn’t see the beauty inside people. Amanda wonders what she ever saw in her ex husband. Tilda literally can’t see herself. Michi can’t bear looking at her family, while Clementine is blind to what’s right in front of her. And Eva looks for romance in all the wrong places.

But things are about to change …

Meet the women of The Happy Endings Book Club as they celebrate Christmas, and themselves, in London, Paris, Vienna, New York, Sydney and in love.
(Synopsis from Goodreads). 

My Thoughts:
Recently, I've been trying to read more contemporary books. It's not usually a genre that I read a lot of. For whatever reason, I am much more likely to pick up a fantasy book. However, I have decided that I'd like to broaden the genres that I read. Therefore, I picked up The Happy Endings Book Club by Jane Tara. I thought it was an okay book. Honestly, I found it a little disappointing.

My biggest problem with the book is that I found the title to be very misleading. Although the book does mention the book club, it wasn't really about the book club. In fact, the book doesn't really talk about books very much at all. Instead, the book was about the ladies of the book club. Due to their ages and the things they were going through, I couldn't relate to them at all. It made me feel very distanced from the story itself. The book should have taken me about 24 hours to read because it was a small book. Instead,  it took about three days because I just didn't care about any of the characters. Then when I did start to care about the characters, their storylines were never finished. It would switch to a different character story which made me angry. It made the book feel like it was a jumbled mess.

There was something that I did like about The Happy Endings Book Club though. One of the character's storylines had magical realism in it. I really liked that. It shocked me and surprised me, but in a good way. It was the last thing that I expected to read in a book like this. Out of all of the women, it was the only story that felt complete. I almost wish that the author would have just focused exclusively on Paige's storyline. I think I would have liked the book so much better. She could have still use the other characters but made their storylines minor, like side characters. I also liked how the author ended the book. I had never seen an author write their book into a book before. I thought that was so cool.

All in all, I found The Happy Endings Book Club to be very disappointing. I had high expectations for it but my expectations fell flat. I just wanted so much more, and never got it. The magical realism in the book is probably the only reason that I even finished it. I do own Jane Tara's other book, Forecast. I do plan on reading it eventually, but after how disappointed I was in this book it will be a while before I get to it. If you do decide to still read this book, I recommend going into it with low expectations.

I give The Happy Endings Book Club: 3/5.

Want to know more about the author?
Website: http://www.janetara.com/
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Roadmancebooks?ref=hl
Twitter: https://twitter.com/janetara
Pintrest: https://www.pinterest.com/roadmance/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1080134.Jane_Tara

I received this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. I was in no way compensated for this review.