Claire Legrand’s Some Kind of Happiness explores life’s awkward silences, ruined moments and hidden truths.
Eleven-year-old Finley navigates life like a prisoner. Held captive by a darkness from within, she struggles with terrible thoughts, night sweats and unexplained bouts of panic. Though overwhelmed by depression, she hides it well. Even her parents, busy with their lives and failing relationship, don’t know. The chronic sadness is Finley’s secret—as is Evermore, a land of her invention where twisted trees, trolls and a dark castle let her escape to a magical realm.
When Finley is sent to live with grandparents she’s never met, she feels even more like a stranger in her own skin. However, once she sees the forest behind her grandparents’ house, she recognizes it as her Evermore—a wild place, a real place where she can be herself. Cautiously, she invites her cousins—and the Bailey boys, whom they’ve been told to avoid—into her world, and soon the summer’s trajectory takes on a life all its own.
Legrand’s greatest strengths are her elegant restraint and her visceral portrayal of her characters from the inside out.
Billie B. Little is the Founding Director of Discovery Center at Murfree Spring, a hands-on museum in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
This article was originally published in the June 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
