I have read this book slowly, one chapter per day. I like it !
I will post my review sooon !!!

The title is kind of misleading, but I still find myself absorbed with the book. Short but intense it is.
The author had to deal with depression, family issues (parents with possible mental illnesses and siblings with Asperger) and also his sexuality.
I find myself in the author's constant questions about his psychological problems and orientation: these are not things that are within our control and can change in a blink of an eye. I am glad he has found happiness.

*I got a free copy in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley

I have to say I actually wasn't sure what this book was about, I thought it was a guide to how to be happy and actually got something entirely different. It was someone's journey through life and a reminder of what goes on in our own head can been quite a minefield in itself. How we are led to believe there is only one what we should be, how we should act etc. What it points out is, that growing up we aren't always taught these things, it's simply just expected.

This book is quite a roller-coaster of emotions. From growing up and not knowing who he was or should be, to his friends, some of which were troubled, to his parents and their problems, David had quite a lot to deal with while growing up. And as with any child, school was one of the biggest problems.

'There are a lot of ideas out there what a man should be, 'Dad wrote, 'and most of them are bullsh#*t. What counts is character. And by God you've got a lot of that.'

Like other reviewers, there have been parts in the book difficult to read, but I think that's what is so brilliant about this book. It doesn't shy away from anything and digs deep into the emotions of a troubled teenager, showing the high's and low's and that in life it's not always a bed of roses. I believe so much more should be taught to our youngsters on how to cope with feelings and how to ask for help. As adults we learn to cope with things, but as teenagers we have so much going on, not just in our bodies with hormones etc, but our young minds need to be able to find a way fo coping to all the changes to. Especially the cross over from school/university to adulthood. This book is a must read for everyone.

'I realised I had grossly underestimated the kindness of the people around me, and their interest in my wellbeing. The world was a nicer place than I made it out to be.'

And I leave you on this note, it appears everything with in self help always points back to one thing.....
'You see young padawan, true happiness is only ever found within yourself. Yuck.Lame But True.'

A really good read about being a young adult in today's Australia.

Told in an easy to read first hand narrative this book got me from the first couple of pages and I loved it. Teenage angst and issues are all through the book - drugs, suicide, sexuality, love, depression, friendships etc. but the story is told in such an engaging way and voice that it is not depressing, and does have a feel good vibe to it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

This book turned out to be too heavy and triggering to me. The writing is nice, but simply not made for me.

How to be Happy is an amazingly honest book. It describes a young mans life along with the confusion and questions he faces. Mainly who am I? A question that I'm sure we've all had to think about at least once.
Life doesn't come easy for some and for David who suffered depression and anxiety his journey hasn't been easy, because of this and it's honesty I got a lot from this book and feel others will also.

Had this been a story as told to me from a good friend, a confession, a thing that they shared with me for the reasons one person would share it with another, I would be grateful they did so. This is the realm in which the telling of the story is both honest and brave. From one person to another: I did this. This was my life. These were the people I hurt. I don't feel good about it. I've learned something since then. And the tone of the book is just like this. In fact, I felt that this was being written for a good friend and that I, as the reader, might be the good friend the author needed to hear.
But, as the story went on (and it was written well), I started feeling the burden of the witness - in the sense that time after time the author would list out the injuries he's given to those closest to him. It made me angry. Not for myself but for the victims he's laid waste.
Now.
Before I go further with this.
The author was depressed. Clinically depressed. He needed to be treated. And at the end of the book, he finally gets this. This is the section that provided the book's redemption. An understanding (of sorts) of the damage that depression could do and what was involved in treatment.
And I would agree that the book was an honest accounting of what happened to him and of where he was at mentally.
So, for all of these things, it very likely took a decent about of courage for David to tell his story.
However, I'm not his friend (not that I wouldn't want to be) -- I'm a reader. I'm someone with my own friends and family. I might (or might not) have my own relationship with mental health disorders. Just like I might (or might not) have my own history with sexual and gender identity.
The reason this makes a difference is because the way in which this story is told while highlighting the author's experience, also shows what I would call a callous disregard for others. More than that, to focus so heavily on the experience of it without delving back in to see how his depression made these decisions for him, how he would do things differently, how wrong he was at the time....it all felt rather indulgent.
And I am sorry to say that because I think it is quite important to talk about mental illness, to take the stigma away, to take some of the (no pun intended) drama away.
I have ended this book wondering what I should have gained from reading it. I don't feel wiser about anxiety or depression or of the treatment options available. I don't feel wiser about helping a friend who might be experiencing anxiety or depression. I don't feel wiser about how to navigate an exploration of sexual identity. I don't feel inspired to take on a career choice that is high-risk.
All in all, I felt this was a book written to be cathartic for the author but not for an audience. That said, if the book were reworked, I think it could have some potential.
Note: I am not submitting this to the blog for posting since I wouldn't recommend it. Two stars given for the writing style and for some clarity at the end.

This book was brutal to my feelings, its honest. Its the type of book that should be handed out in freshman orientation and essays need to be assigned for it.
Wait no, that would make students sparks note it and hate it. And the sparks notes version of the book would not do it justice.
This is an essential to all teens, and to any parents saying that teens shouldnt be exposed to these topics. Let me welcome you to the reality of what teens see.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It follows the author as he experiences his adolescence, and deals with the struggles of questioning his sexuality as well as confronting his mental illness. This book gave me a great insight into his experience, and it showed how difficult adolescence is. It confronts issues regarding discovering sexuality, growing apart from friends, self mutilation, and relationships/breakups. Despite how different the author's teenage experience was from my own, I found it completely relatable. Every teenager has a difficult time discovering who they are whilst trying to maintain appearances. To read about David's thoughts during this difficult period in his life, it reminded me that you never really know what is going on in someone's head. Despite how everyone portrays themselves to the world, we really all are incredibly clueless. In adolescence, who we are, who we want to be, what we want to do...it all seems inconceivable. This book was a great reminder also, that no matter how difficult life may seem, it will get better. It is never too late to achieve happiness, and it may seem difficult, but we will all find our way. I think this book is suitable for any young adult/adult to read, and I would strongly recommend it.

What a dreadful and ridiculous title, as I suspect the author is quite aware of. And what a well chosen title for the last chapter!

This is a very brave story to tell and it is done with grace, banter even and a gentle way of telling about things that all teenagers torture themselves with: insecurities, expectations, embarrassment and reliving failure. As if peer pressure isn't enough.
We are all human beings, no matter how we may appear to the rest of the world. Even when being adults.

Happiness is complicated. For some, it comes easy, almost naturally. For many others, it's something they spend their whole lives chasing after, struggling to obtain. And happiness is never truly constant. It can come and fade through different stages in our lives. In his book How To Be Happy, David Burton shows how sometimes it takes living through many moments of unhappiness first before ultimately getting to a place of happiness. As he takes the reader through his life, he reveals the many obstacles he has faced, from finding his place in high school to the challenges of growing up with two brothers with Asperger's to exploring his sexuality and more. Through his ups and his downs, Burton tells it all so candidly yet also with some humor mixed in, making him a truly gifted storyteller.

I really enjoyed reading this book. As someone who has struggled with my own happiness in my life, and who also deeply enjoys personal stories, I was really interested in reading David's book. Sure enough, his story immediately drew me in as he dove into different stories through his high school years and introduced me to the various people who came into his life, from a cheese-loving, socially awkward nerd to a teacher who would come to be his mentor for years to come. With this, I also appreciated the fact that there was a lot of subject matter that David confronted head-on as he narrated through the different phases of his life, mostly in terms of gender and sexuality, and wrestling with how those both fit with his own identity. Throughout the book, David questions whether he may be gay, and what that would mean if he was. Did that mean he had to suddenly be flamboyant, like all the gay people he saw in pop culture? When he had questions about sexuality, he would turn to porn, making sure that he masturbated right while also trying to grapple with wanting to be a family man yet seeing a completely different, sexually aggressive version of masculinity in mainstream heterosexual porn. There are many questions that he finds himself asking regarding his own identity, including what exactly his identity is and whether or not he should be filling a certain mold.

There were very few things I disliked about this book, but they were there nonetheless. One of these critiques relates to early on in the book when David delves into a friendship he had with a girl named Mary, who David later learned was self-harming. Mary had also developed a crush on David, and when David let her down gently, it's revealed that Mary had sometimes cut herself because of him. This moment in the story was actually very moving, as it was David's first real encounter with depression, manifested in a startlingly physical form. As signs of her self-harming became more and more evident, this caused him great stress as he tried his best to be there for his friend, until it became too much that he had no choice but to go to a school counselor and get Mary the help she needed.

This wasn't what bothered me but it was later on in the story when David encounters another girl, Tiff, who also self-harmed. This was where David started to turn self-harm into light humor as he wrote, "What would happen if a girl said yes, and suddenly I was in a Tiff situation again? I would stuff it up and destroy the poor girl's heart. I felt as though I should come with a warning sign around my neck: 'Loving me will almost certainly result in wrist-cutting.' To me, this came across as pretty insensitive, and not only that but also carrying a sort of, I make every girl I meet want to kill herself...What a blow to my ego, har-har sort of vibe, which also isn't cool and is honestly really self-centered. Like, these girls are obviously going through a really hard period in their lives, yet you somehow spin it around to be about yourself and how, woe-as-you, you can't get a girlfriend? Hm...

The other critique I have about this book is a lot less harsh and more about my own questions that I have about David that I didn't feel were completely answered. A recurring theme throughout David's book is his questioning his own sexuality and whether he may be gay. He even comes out to his parents and friends. Yet as his story goes on, he continues to obsess over the hype of being kissed and being in a relationship, which gets pretty old after a while. And while he experimented with being gay, it felt that he immediately just reverted back to his high school ways of wanting a girlfriend just for the sake of it. He would date a girl simply because she seemed cool and they got on well, not necessarily because he was in love with her or felt anything significant beyond that. And he questions this himself (just as much as I did) before ultimately deciding for himself that sexuality is fluid and can change over time. While I do get this, I still wasn't completely convinced, nor did I feel he was truly convincing himself. Even by the end, he never fully confronts this question, and it's sort of just left up in the air. I know this is more on me and my own personal hopes and that this question doesn't necessarily need to be answered, but I personally think it would've added a lot to have David at least address this one final time by the book's end.
* * *
All in all, I really enjoyed David's book. I felt privileged that he took me through his life--his ups and his downs, his insecurities, and his many questions as he navigated through different phases and identities. Unlike what the title suggests, this book is not a quick path to finding happiness. On the contrary, what David's book illustrates is that finding happiness is a lifelong journey. I loved the way that David told his story from beginning to end. His voice is so strong and commands all of your attention, whether his sentences are full of humor or weighty with seriousness. I commend him for opening up in this book to reveal the many struggles he's faced along the way, from sexuality to personal identity to finding his place and his purpose.

How to Be Happy lets us into the life of the author from his first years as a teen-ager through his first few years after college. Though this is a memoir, it is in no way a pedantic coming-of-age story. Burton is not much out of his twenties as he pens this tale looking back on his early life and he, rightly, figures he has some practical life tips for young adults and some insights into the experiences and reasoning of people coming of age in this millennium.

Burton was raised in a suburban, middle-class, possibly upper middle class, household. His parents are loving and concerned and seek to position their children with an educational experience where they each grow and thrive. In other words, Burton’s family is like millions of other families in first world countries. Every family has their challenges and Burton’s family includes younger brothers (twins) with pronounced Asperger’s Syndrome and both parents who battle depression from time to time.

I feel like many memoirs are written because there is a heroic person central to the story who overcomes a BIG TRAUMA or is harboring a BIG SECRET. That’s not exactly the case with Burton. His life is not exceptional but in telling his story, Burton shows how special we each are, each of our unique life experiences. Burton’s conflicted feelings about himself, about where he fits in to the social structure at school and with friends, brought many of my own feelings about life in high school rushing back. Burton talks frankly about his confusion over sexuality and sex, the struggle for friendship, desire for romantic connection and expression, and the meaningful adults who come in to his life.

I could identify with Burton in many ways and also saw myself reflected in some of his friends as he witnesses their own struggles and successes as they mature into their twenties. While there was certainly a parallel with our joint dilemmas around sexual orientation and establishing relationships with men and women, the overriding memory that was brought home was the relentless worry that was just beneath the surface of every day and every experience. Whether happy, sad, or indifferent on the surface, that inner voice saying you’re not good enough, smart enough, normal enough persists, persists, persists. No amount of great parenting or good schools can quiet it, only the process of growing up, maturing and accepting oneself can bring the revelation of How to Be Happy.

I would like to not review this book, because there is a trigger in it with which I can't deal at the moment.
Your description says "How to Be Happy tackles depression, friendship, sexual identity, suicide, academic pressure, love and adolescent confusion." It's really great that you are adding triggers in the description (not a lot of people do), but sadly self-harm is not mentioned as a trigger. Reading about cutting oneself is worse for me than reading about suicide, strange as it may seem and I do have to take care of myself.

It's still a great book - that is as far as I've read before I needed to stop - so I don't want to write a dnf review about it.

Hopefully you can understand.

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.