****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
The only problem with this book is that summer (in most parts of the country, not where I live) is over. This is a perfect summer read, funny and profane. But, what the heck. Read it in the fall. Read it before Christmas.Janet is sad and therefore perpetually prodded by friends, family, and an ex-boyfriend to take drugs for it. Janet actually likes being sad, and in fact she likes her sadness better than she likes most people. She also harbors a particular fondness for dogs, especially when compared with her feeling for humans. What’s not to like here?Janet is trying to decide what to do with her life (aren’t we all?), and while she’s figuring it out, she’s working at a run-down dump of a dog shelter. Her boss, Debs, is a bi-sexual woman not terribly tolerant of men, and that sentiment Janet shares, having just broken up with a long-time live-in boyfriend who left because she was sad and didn’t want to do anything about it. It was all about him, you see. Melissa, the other employee at the dog shelter, is a young, heterosexual, cheerful woman who loves Christmas, and for all of those traits, is obviously the weird one.The year-end holidays are approaching in that most American way—in October. Before Halloween. Janet’s stress level is rising as she anticipates another season of cheer that will put her sadness in sharp relief, as usual. She’s not crazy about Christmas (or Hanukkah or Kwanza), and like many people, finds it always falls far short of expectations. Lo and behold, dear angels, a pharmaceutical miracle appears—a drug formulated specially to help people enjoy the holidays.A prescription for the drug comes with a mandate to attend six group therapy sessions moderated by one of the pharmaceutical company’s employees and surveilled by another. These sessions bring a bunch of like-minded (anti-social Christmas haters) together, and the meetings are hilarious in a quiet, sad sort of way.I think this novel is a triumph. Although I had problems with the rather cheerful ending—perhaps “upbeat” is more correct—I couldn’t put it down. I am, in many ways, like Janet. Don’t tell me I’d look prettier if I’d smile, or I’m likely to signal my disapproval in that most anti-social, digital of ways. But even if you’re more like Melissa than Janet, the lively prose and spot-on social criticism it conveys will keep you smiling. And if you’re one of us who is more agnostic about Christmas than the people around you, you might find this story—like the Christmas pill?—gets you to look forward to the holidays for the first time in a long time.
