I'm once again in the minority in how I feel about a book compared to other early reviewers. The heart of Like Happiness for me was the toxic relationship between Tatum and Mateo. Tatum reads Mateo's book, Happiness, while she's in college and reaches out to him in a fangirl moment to tell him how much she loves his book and how much it speaks to her. To her surprise, she actually receives a response from him, and it kicks off a relationship that lasts years. The book alternates back and forth between after the relationship has ended and Tatum has found happiness (the state of being, not the book) with a career and a significant other in Chile, and writing to Mateo looking back on their relationship. The relationship between the two definitely has its problems, Tatum is over the moon at having a real relationship with a person she idolizes, and Mateo uses her desire to have the relationship as an outlet for his emotional state and as a source of creativity.
It's really hard for me to go with the argument that Mateo grooms Tatum. At what point is a person old enough and have enough personal authority to walk away from a situation and chooses not to? This is a woman who's legally an adult, who has moved away from her family to go to school, and the only thing she loses by walking away from the relationship is her connection to a famous person, one who isn't all that much older than her. Is it wrong for Mateo to string her along knowing that she doesn't want to lose her connection to him? Sure. But he never really holds anything over her. He does do something pretty awful to her that explains to the reader why Tatum finally broke off the relationship, but that goes back to the relationship being toxic and not serving both partners in it equally.
The other animal in the room is Tatum herself. She considers herself an intellectual, which is fair, but then holds her expectations of everyone else to that standard. If she doesn't perceive people as being interesting enough to approach she doesn't even bother, missing out on potential relationships that are a lot healthier by making snap judgments of people. And yet she also spends the entire time she has a relationship with Mateo having no aspirations and no motivation. She's essentially forced into looking for a job after moving to New York despite getting degrees that reflect her intellectual pursuits, but she ends up getting a job as an assistant teacher. Once there she gets complacent in a job that requires limited brain power and doesn't pursue grander ambitions unless she thinks she'll get rejected. It's like she wants to play "poor little me".
Do I respect her frustrations in being the only brown person in the room, and not have society reflect back anything that speaks to her identity? Yes. But it takes until after her relationship with Mateo before she decides to blaze her own path, instead of noticing it and silently seething about it while doing little to change the narrative moving forward. This book is about a toxic relationship, but a big reason why the relationship exists for as long as it does is because the person that's getting less out of the relationship isn't willing to pursue anything great for herself or make tough decisions to move her life forward.
It's really hard for me to go with the argument that Mateo grooms Tatum. At what point is a person old enough and have enough personal authority to walk away from a situation and chooses not to? This is a woman who's legally an adult, who has moved away from her family to go to school, and the only thing she loses by walking away from the relationship is her connection to a famous person, one who isn't all that much older than her. Is it wrong for Mateo to string her along knowing that she doesn't want to lose her connection to him? Sure. But he never really holds anything over her. He does do something pretty awful to her that explains to the reader why Tatum finally broke off the relationship, but that goes back to the relationship being toxic and not serving both partners in it equally.
The other animal in the room is Tatum herself. She considers herself an intellectual, which is fair, but then holds her expectations of everyone else to that standard. If she doesn't perceive people as being interesting enough to approach she doesn't even bother, missing out on potential relationships that are a lot healthier by making snap judgments of people. And yet she also spends the entire time she has a relationship with Mateo having no aspirations and no motivation. She's essentially forced into looking for a job after moving to New York despite getting degrees that reflect her intellectual pursuits, but she ends up getting a job as an assistant teacher. Once there she gets complacent in a job that requires limited brain power and doesn't pursue grander ambitions unless she thinks she'll get rejected. It's like she wants to play "poor little me".
Do I respect her frustrations in being the only brown person in the room, and not have society reflect back anything that speaks to her identity? Yes. But it takes until after her relationship with Mateo before she decides to blaze her own path, instead of noticing it and silently seething about it while doing little to change the narrative moving forward. This book is about a toxic relationship, but a big reason why the relationship exists for as long as it does is because the person that's getting less out of the relationship isn't willing to pursue anything great for herself or make tough decisions to move her life forward.