Beyond the Book: This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith – Take Me Away… On the Pages of Your Story

This bookish feature is an original by me! I had the epiphany for this the other day when I was writing out my 15 bookish confessions. (See #7) A lot of times I like to go “beyond the book” and do something that will connect me with the book and characters a little more. This will pop up on Mondays! Be on the look out for which books caught my eye and made me go “beyond” just reading it!

This Beyond the Book feature will come from This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith.

In the beginning of the novel there is a slight mix-up of email addresses and Ellie and Graham suddenly begin talking to each other. They continue talking as if they had known each other their entire lives. As they get to know each other, they begin asking questions about one another. One that stood out to me was: “What does happy look like to you?”

“From: EONeill22@hotmail.com
Sent: Saturday, June 8, 2013 1:18 PM
To: GDL824@yahoo.comSubject: what happy looks like
Sunrises over the harbor. Ice cream on a hot day. The sound of the waves down the street. The way my dog curls up next to me on the couch. Evening strolls. Great movies. Thunderstorms. A good cheeseburger. Fridays. Saturdays. Wednesdays, even. Sticking your toes in the water. Pajama pants. Flip-flops. Swimming. Poetry. The absence of smiley faces in an e-mail.

There are a lot of those things that me and Ellie have in common, but that’s not exactly what MY “happy” looks like. So, obviously I got to thinking “What would mine look like?” So I decided to create a Wordle to show you all MY happy!

Since the point of a Wordle is to just give out specific words and some have a little more emphasis on them than others, here are my original words for my description of happy:

“Mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Summertime. Reading. Thunderstorms. Deandre. Family. Percy Jackson. Friends.
Love. Wearing pajamas all day. Nooks. PopTarts. Freshly baked chocolate chip
cookies. The beach. Learning new things. Experiencing new things. Shrimp. The
Lunar Chronicles. Good music. Cute babies. Traveling. Harry Potter. Football. Frozen
Margaritas. Books. Twitter. Blogging. Road trips.“

In my review, I stated “this book reminds you of all the things that make you smile and it will cause you to smile until you turn the very last page” and all these things definitely do have this effect on me.

So, what does your happy look like?

Have you ever had such a connection with a book that you had to go beyond just reading it?
Join me on Mondays with Beyond the Book!