Like Happiness, Ursula Villarreal-Moura

2 May

An unravelling coming-of-age novel with a New York setting – if this is your perfect idea of a book, you’re in for a treat.

Like Happiness brings us into Tatum Vega’s world as she receives a phone call from a journalist that prompts her to explore a relationship she had had with a legendary older writer. We go back and forth between her younger years in New York alongside M, a self-important author, and her current life in Chile with her partner Vera. What I’d like to know is, how is it possible that this book – with the perfect portrayal of a self-aware yet lost protagonist and a storyline that generates every emotion while making you want to throw the book across the room – is a debut?

Unequal relationships aren’t an unusual topic to be explored in fiction, but the way Villarreal-Moura writes feels new. She gives us a questionable dynamic, built on small moments that will get under your skin and leave you feeling uncomfortable without being able to pinpoint the specific cause of it, while also painting a smart and strong protagonist that gets lost in it all. It’s a dynamic I wouldn’t even have the words to explain, but Villarreal-Moura somehow captures it so well, so accurately, that it’s impossible to look away.

The dive into Tatum’s growth as she finds and then loses herself continuously – in the hands of the same pattern – is exhausting, but it’s also extremely readable. Part of the reason for this is because, even though there is a man at the centre of Tatum’s story, the story is undoubtedly Tatum’s. She holds the pain and confusing she has endured, but we get to see her move through life alongside it, enjoying art, literature, the city, and other relationships in order to become more herself, slowly but surely. And it’s spectacular.