4.5 Stars

Definitely do not read this one until you’ve read the first, Happy Head. Because they are not standalone novels. They are intertwined and require your full understanding of how we end up here, in book two.

While this may very well be a YA book, I think most people can benefit from it. So much about learning to love yourself and be yourself. Don’t try to change to make others happy. Josh Silver teaches so many valuable lessons in these two novels. How others perceive what is happiness and what makes you happy. There isn’t one right way. I think that is the most valuable lesson.

So book two picks up where book one leaves us. With five couples on top and ready to start the next step of their ‘adventure.’ They are going to be led by Ares & Artemis, the beautiful, perfect people on this wild island. The couples will learn how to trust one another, how to be representatives of the ‘happy’. The start of a brand new world.

This world is filled with terrifying challenges that will break and strengthen them, just like bones. Along they way they will hopefully figure out what is wrong and what is right, but will it be their right or what Manning thinks is right. After all, this is her little game.Will any of them survive?

A lot like the Hunger Games, but with a mental health twist. I love what Silver has done through these two novels. They are incredible reads. I also am grateful that he includes mental health resources, because I think all of us, sometimes, need them.