Blog Tour: Happy Family by James Ellis

Games and books are two of my favourite hobbies. Whenever a book is about a game, I don’t miss a chance to read it. Happy Family by James Ellis wasn’t an exception. My many thanks to Anne Cater, the author, and the publisher for allowing me to be part of this tour.

Author: James Ellis Publisher: Unbound Digital Pages: 304 Genre: Fiction, Humour, LGBT Publication: 6th February 2020

Synopsis:

Germaine Kiecke was a foundling, an orphan, brought up by the infamous ‘Motherhood’ in a Belgian orphanage. Now she is a successful art academic who defines herself by her profession and prefers to experience the world through art and an augmented reality game called Happy Family.

But when the artist Tom Hannah, the creative force behind Happy Family, moves to Spain, surrounds himself with high walls, three large guard dogs called Harpo, Chico and Groucho, and a runaway who teaches him to think like a tree, his existential melt-down threatens all Germaine holds dear.

She is forced to re-engage with life and travels to Spain to try to make things right. Along the way, she meets people who are also, for one reason or another, dependent on Tom’s fictional world to augment their own ‘real’ lives.

Review:

Content Warning: Death and suicide.

Going into this book, I had a lot of expectations. A book filled with games, virtual adventures, and the game at risk of shutting down forever, basically another book like Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, but I was completely wrong. And I’m glad I was! Happy Family takes a completely different path focusing on the impact the game has on someone’s life instead of the actual game-play.

Happy Family is a virtual reality game that combines The Sims with dark twists, full of unfortunate events and drama where everything is NOT fine. Unexpected pregnancies? Check! Arguments and fights? Check! Explosions and car crashes? Check! I found it interesting that the game wasn’t designed to “substitute” real-life experiences and create an alternate perfect life for the player. Maybe because of that, the story spends barely any time inside the actual game. The focus is Germaine and how she uses the game as a coping mechanism to deal with her past and her everyday life.

Another theme I wasn’t expecting to find in this book was art. Tom is more than just the creator of the game, he is an artist, and before creating Happy Family, he did cartoon strips (which are a hint to James Ellis’ first book The Wrong Story). Germaine’s passion and vision upon art was something that I felt deeply connected to. How she distinguishes the artist from the art, the importance art has on life, and how we should treasure it. I was so surprised and fascinated with all that talk, I didn’t even mind the slow story development.

Between all the art and games, the book also delves into death. That is one of the central points, the relation the characters have with death and grief. The book starts with Tom’s mother dying, and it’s something that is brought up throughout the whole book. Even though it deals with heavy topics, the story is humorous and light which lifts off the harshness of the topic.

About the author:

James has written two novels, The Wrong Story and Happy Family, and a novella, Fizz. He has had published a number of prize-winning short stories and a travelogue of his journey through Central America. He has a Master of Studies in Creative Writing and is a member of the Society of Authors, English PEN and the International Flann O’Brien Society. He is an occasional presenter on Froma FM’s On-Air Book Group, a contributor to Carers UK’s creative writing campaigns and was an ambassador for a Shooting Star – a charity for babies, children and young people with life-limiting conditions.

Add To: Goodreads Get a copy: Amazon UK Book Depository: Paperback*

Don’t forget to check out all the other bloggers on this tour for more reviews.