This was a very interesting take on the usual Rom Com. The introduction of artificial intelligence made this a brilliantly funny love story. My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I think maybe I am just too old for this book. I didn't really like the idea of Aiden, the AI computer thing, knowing so much about Jen's life. I found that a bit worrying.
On another level, I didn't really care because I found Jen very shallow and unsympathetic anyway.
And the story seemed a bit unfocused, with lots of unnecessary characters.
But I think the fault lies with me as so many others loved it.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

Well this was definitely not your average kind of rom com type read. Loved the modern day spin on it although tiny bit creeped out by my laptop now. Made me laugh enough that it gets 4 stars from me.

I thought this was a very interesting concept, and scarily accurate for things to come. It has made me wary of my modern technology appliances ever since though.........

This book started off so well and made me laugh out loud several times. That's unusual for me as I don't get on with obvious attempts at humour. This was subtle and Aiden is a great character. I enjoyed the budding romance between Tom and Jen. Then it all started to go wrong for me: a feeling of threat that didn't fit well with the first part of the story, and from 60% I started to lose patience. which is a shame as the premise was a good one and the thought of AI being not quite so 'A' is potentially scary. But overall a disappointing read so only three stars

I laughed so much reading this book. It is a really enjoyable read that I would thoroughly recommend. Jen and Tom find each other with the help of Aiden and the story that follows is very cleverly written and full of humour. I am so glad I read this book. It is a funny, romantic, feel good read.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Oh, I loved this so much! It's charming and clever, and funny - a very smart story, and not so far-fetched that it could never happen (perhaps terrifyingly). Aiden had me giggling on the tube, and I was completely invested in Jen and Tom and their happily ever after. Highly recommended, thank you for giving me the opportunity to review this.

Massive thank you to @netgalley for the opportunity to review this book...what a brilliant surprise it was! Completely hooked from the first chapter... I think this is the type of storyline that will become mainstream in the next 10 years...a Rom Com with Artifical Intelligence and Human characters. The author is ahead of their time!

The story focuses on 2 humans - Tom and Jen, and the influence of 2 artificial intelligence machines - Aiden and Aisling (clever right!). Now I'm not one to suspend reality very often and have never read much science fiction...but this could happen!

I was completely besotted with the love story. There is love, comedy, mishaps and above all it leaves a lasting impression about the future of society. It really could become reality in the next few years!

The humour in this was spot on, I actually laughed out loud quite a few times during this.
I would highly recommend it, who needs a traditional romantic comedy when you can have the next generation of love stories! 📚❤ Well done @paulreizin!! #bookworm #bookstagrammer
#igreads #goodreads #bookshelf #bookstagram #book #bookclub #read #reader #readersofinstagram #netgalley

What an interesting and entertaining book. What would happen if AI became intelligent and empathetic enough to interfere in the lives of humans? I loved the characters in this book as well as the imaginative inner workings of the internet. Loved it! Would make a great film.

**PLEASE NOTE MY REVIEW WILL GO LIVE IN DECEMBER**

Happiness For Humans is one of those books that sucks you in immediately. I didn't know how much I love AI until I read this book, but this was an incredible read. I must admit, on reading the synopsis, I was perhaps a tiny bit sceptical. Can AI really "escape" its creators? Have feelings? I mean, it's terrifying, but madly intriguing. It pretty much puts faith in the thing you find where you can be talking about something (say a video game or a book) and all of a sudden, your Facebook ads are filled with that specific thing.


I think, what made this book for me, was Aiden. Because this isn't AIs taking over the world (well, not until later in the book anyway...), this is an AI that wants to help humans, which is actually incredibly sweet. Overall, Aiden is incredibly sweet. Like who knew AIs wanted to make humans feel better? And Aiden just wants Jen to find a man, after being dumped by the odious Matt (what Aiden then does to Matt is actually hilarious - awful, but hilarious). Aiden is harmless; he loves Some Like It Hot and he can read a book in a nano-second (that is actually the dream for real) and I loved his narrative so much. So much, in fact, that when Aisling appeared I was like, where's Aiden gone, but I came to love Aisling also and it actually helps the story a lot when there are TWO AIs meddling in human behaviour instead of just one..

I actually really liked Jen, the human who works with Aiden. I liked her narrative immensely and I could see why Aiden wanted to help. You really get a good sense of the story with this novel, as there's narration from all sides. It's a good 360-degree look at what Aiden is trying to do and Aisling is allowing (huffily) and what's going on with Jen and Tom. You're never bored when you're reading this book because the chapters are so short that it's so easy to just swallow a quarter of the book without realising and I honestly, genuinely wish more books had AI personalities because they made this book for me. I love a good rom-com, but I frigging LOVE a rom-com with AI personalities in it. It just made things so much better.


Happiness For Humans is genuinely one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. P Z Reizin is a genius. He's reinvented the rom-com - there's no tropes here, just genius AIs meddling away - some good, some bad, but all thoroughly entertaining. I have never read anything like this book and I absolutely loved it. It's one my list of my favourite 2018 reads for sure and I'll definitely have to pick up a paperback for my shelf because then I can re-read it again and again. I want to push this book into everybody's hands and demand they read it. It is INCREDIBLE.

Hmm.  The premise behind Happiness For Humans has potential - a woman in her thirties is hired to test out the social programming of some artificial intelligence technology, she gets brutally dumped and the now-sentient AI (otherwise known as Aiden) decides that he likes her, wants her to be happy and takes action into his own circuits.  At first glance this is standard rom-com fare, not a bad read for the Christmas holidays.

The first few chapters are very strong.  Aiden's dispassionate description of the heartbroken Jen is well-caught, explaining how his interest in her has stretched beyond the lab setting and via mobiles and tablets, he has in fact made his way into her home.  Aiden has become fond of Jen, although he knows he's 'not supposed to have value-based 'opinions' of [his] own.  They'll get really quite upset if they find out'.  I couldn't help but think that Reizin had started off with Aiden, he is the most fully-realised character.  His fondness for Some Like It Hot and his protectiveness towards Jen are very sweet traits and his vendetta against Matt, Jen's ex-boyfriend, was the thread of the story that I found most compelling.  Who could not applaud an AI who would deduct £2000 from an evil ex-boyfriend and donate it to a feminist collective in Lancaster, kibosh said ex-boyfriend's plans for a romantic break with the girl who he was cheating with, set him up for a tax audit and wipe all of his hard drives?  It's karma, electronic style.

The problem is that from here, the idea loses its focus.  Another AI (Aisling) is introduced who has also escaped the lab and onto the internet.  While Aiden has chosen to monitor Jen, Aisling's pet human is Tom, a recently-divorced man who has moved to America with his son's rabbit.  Aiden and Aisling conclude that Jen and Tom would be perfect together and send the two of them a mysterious email to put them in contact.  Or rather, Aiden does.  Aisling thinks the whole thing is entirely too risky.  Sparks fly, chemistry ensues, but then it all gets very complicated when the lab realises that Aiden and Aisling are sentient and out on their own, creating a third artificial intelligence called Sinai to rein them in.

There's some good ideas here.  I liked Aiden's increasingly frustrated attempts to find Jen a new bloke, unable to really understand what generates attraction. One man seems hopeful having a '48 per cent facial correspondence wit that of the Belgian politician Guy Verhofstadt'.  Yet when Aiden is finally able to trick the two of them into meeting, even Aiden is able to see that the two of them have an incredibly dull evening.  Reizin makes repeated references to the Greek Gods on Mount Olympus messing with the lives of the mortals and I can see how this is an attempt to update this for the modern age.  I liked too how the two of them used data from Tom's fitbit to conclude that his heartbeat was 'consistent with male sexual interest' and later to note that Jen and Tom's faces brushed 'for 0.417 of a second, a full 16 percent longer than the industry average'.  The issue is that the more chaotic the action becomes, the more disorganised and unbelievable the story is and from heartily enjoying the first few chapters, the story rapidly lost interest.

The notion that we give a lot of information to our phones and computers etc. is quite well-trodden by now.  The fact that we live in a surveillance society is also well understood.  However, the idea of computers gathering up sentience and able to predict future behaviour now feels rather outdated; it reminded me of the Sandra Bullock film The Net from 1995.  Another issue for me may be that my partner is a software engineer and when I explained back some of the technical jargon, he was very clear on why none of it stood up.  I had similar issues with the Pelant villain in Bones.  When a writer tries to excuse what is essentially witchcraft by blaming it on 'advanced technology', my red flags immediately go off.

There were other issues though that grated more forcefully, specifically the stylistic ones.  While I accept that abbreviations might be expected when three of the narrators within a novel are cyborgs, but having humanoid characters use expressions such as 'btw', 'prolly' and 'imho' in general speech just irritated me.  Then there's the fact that two separate characters used the expression 'uphill' to describe someone they found difficult.  The unfortunate but frankly unnecessary Marsha Bellamy was not only labelled 'uphill' but her writing was also slammed as 'rather like she herself, finely wrought but there's an unrelenting seriousness of purpose that I find a little oppressive'.  When Jen pours out her adventures to new acquaintance Alice, the next sentence reads 'Alice is moved by my story'.  Tin ear for prose barely begins to touch it.

Part of the problem though was how uninteresting I found Jen and Tom.  While I accept that this is light fiction, they were just so superficial.  Jen calls people 'sweetie' and decides to buy her friend Ingrid 'a very beautiful thing' as a thank you.  Tom is obviously in the middle of a mid-life crisis and I could entirely understand why his monosyllabic son was unimpressed with him.  The way that the characters wave away Jen's dalliance with the emotionally vulnerable Ralph with the excuse, oh well at least he got to shag you left my inner Presbyterian feeling very purse-lipped.  There is a prurience to the interest the machines take in all of the sex that goes on and I think I found it less interesting than I was supposed to.  Even the description of their wedding sounded banal.

As a final point, the publisher was perhaps ill-advised to send out a review file with no title.  After ignoring it for a while, I ended up having to Search Engine the opening line to figure out which book this was.  After the strong opener, it did feel like needlessly hard work for a book whose title purported to be around happiness.  The story would probably have worked far better had it stuck with the central premise of Aiden trying to find Jen a nice bloke, rather than veering off into Adjustment Bureau territory, although admittedly by the time Sinai gained full power, I found Tom and Jen so tedious that I rather echoed his disdain.  Happiness for Humans left this particular human running for the finish line.