I Want You to Be Happy

Is this the book of the summer? Quite possibly. I Want You to be Happy follows Chuck, an ad agency copywriter and Joey, a young barista, both with secret writerly ambitions, through their very 2026 age-gap situationship. It’s an entanglement craftily refracted through the minutiae of modern existence: Slack, Gails, East London bars and Instagram, giving you serious pause to reflect on modern masculinity, isolation and why the hell you’re working in a corporate job. Plus, when Sally Rooney endorses a fellow contemporary relationship novel, you take note.