Title: How to Be Happy: A Memoir of Love, Sex and Teenage Confusion
Author: David Burton
Genre: LGBTQIA, Teens & YA
Rating: 4 out of 5 fairies
Where to buy: Amazon
Synopsis: *Winner, the Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing, 2014*
A funny, sad and serious memoir, ‘How to Be Happy’ is David Burton’s story of his turbulent life at high school and beyond. Feeling out of place and convinced that he is not normal, David has a rocky start. He longs to have a girlfriend, but his first ‘date’ is a disaster. There’s the catastrophe of the school swimming carnival – David is not sporty – and friendships that take devastating turns. Then he finds some solace in drama classes with the creation of ‘Crazy Dave’, and he builds a life where everything is fine. But everything is not fine.
And, at the centre of it all, trying desperately to work it all out, is the real David.
‘How to Be Happy’ tackles depression, friendship, sexual identity, suicide, academic pressure, love and adolescent confusion. It’s a brave and honest account of one young man’s search for a happy, true and meaningful life that will resonate with readers young and old.
About the Author: David Burton is a writer from Brisbane, now based in Sydney, best known for his theatre work. A speaker and presenter in school across Queensland, David is passionate about finding ways to open dialogue about the challenges faced by teens including sexual identity, depression and family life. You can check out his website here.
Review: A great look inside the mind of a teenager struggling with various aspects of their identity, How to Be Happy is less a book on finding happiness, and more a ray of hope for those who don’t realize how not alone they are.
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We are (slowly) working on updating old posts to the new format and removing old tour/blitz posts that are now missing key assets – please be patient with us, there are a lot of posts to go through, we’ve been doing this since 2016! Any tour/blitz posts that contained a review and are now missing key assets will be updated to review posts so the reviews remain accessible
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We’re doing our best to get everything up on the site and social media in a timely manner. Apologies if anything is missed or late! Between the state of the US right now, mental/physical health problems, and some things going on in our personal lives, things may be missed or late occasionally. We truly appreciate your understanding! Feel free to reach out to Lily if you notice something missing.
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Mental Health Resources for those in the USA – In light of the recent election, we want to put out a message that LGBTQIA+ and minorities are always welcome here. We may post promos in conjunction with tour companies that spout worldviews we don’t always agree with, but we do our best to avoid any openly phobic posts, and should you notice any, we’d appreciate you contacting us with this form to let us know.
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