This was a book club pick for the book club I’m in (and for good reason!). I have to admit that I didn’t read it in time for our get together 👀, buuuut I did end up finishing it later. The whole reason this book ended up as a book club pick is because Jordan LaHaye Fontenot is a local author for us. I have family members who are very close with her and her family, and my own family only lives about a 30-minute drive from Mamou, Louisiana. It was a given as soon as Home of the Happy came out that we would be picking it up for book club. 

So, to get to the review for this novel. I think one of my favorite parts about this book is that it blends a lot of different genres and ideas all into one. Memoir? Check. True crime? Check. Feels like fiction? Double check. I am not a nonfiction reader. If you’ve followed me this far, you know that nonfiction takes up maybe three of my 70+ books read a year. Home of the Happy truly is more nonfiction than fiction, but it reads very much like fiction. 

There are alternating timelines and POVs where, in the present day, Jordan LaHaye Fontenot is explaining her experiences of digging into the past and her great grandfather’s kidnapping and murder, and in the past, she is reconstructing what happened as best as she can with chapters that read a lot like fiction. I thought the blend of these two timelines worked PERFECTLY. It was so easy to imagine everything as it happened, and, as a writer myself, I can imagine the author reenacting the tale in her head piece by piece as she gathers more information. If you didn’t know, writers have very vivid imaginations 😂. Jordan LaHaye Fontenot used hers to display the past of her family’s history to the best of her ability. 

On top of the beautiful blend of genres and storytelling, this novel gives you a riveting true crime that a family member is working to solve. I seriously applaud Jordan LaHaye Fontenot for digging so deeply into her family’s history because, guys, if you’ve never lived in a small town, then you don’t know how easy it is to get smack dab in the middle of the gossip mill. I would not have had the courage she had to seek out her family’s truths—no matter how ugly they may be. I’m telling y’all, small towns are brutal. People are relentless in the quest to talk about other people (especially since there isn’t much else to do around here except gossip). But as much as I have bad things to say about small towns, they’re also a great source of community, which you can also see in Home of the Happy. There were so many people who were more than willing to talk to the author about their experience, if only for a listening ear. If I’m being completely honest, I don’t know how anything ever STAYS secret in small towns. 

To get off of my tangent, I really enjoyed the true crime aspect of this novel. I also seriously loved the deep dive into her family’s history because it honestly makes me think of my own family and home much I don’t know about them. My paternal grandfather speaks Cajun French. My maternal grandmother moved from Texas to start a new life (and her mother followed her to Louisiana as well). The deep dive into Jordan LaHaye Fontenot’s family made me want to know my own family at a deeper level. 

Spoilers ahead. 

I read a few reviews from other readers (as I always do so I can see if others think the same thing as me about a book ☺️), and a lot of people were upset that you don’t ever really know who killed Aubrey LaHaye. I think, at the end, Jordan LaHaye Fontenot found some closer in the articles she found where John Brady Balfa basically confesses that he killed a man, but at the end of the day, we truly don’t know who killed Aubrey LaHaye and we may never know. The great thing about the ending of this novel is that it is REAL. Crime isn’t always solved. Justice isn’t always served. That, unfortunately, is what life looks like right now. The best we can do is wake up each day and try to make things better than they were the day before. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel since it was already so close to home (literally). The audiobook BUTCHERS so many pronunciations, but what can you say 🤷🏻‍♀️, Cajun pronunciations are hard. The blending of fiction vs. nonfiction was amazing and the storytelling is top notch. I would definitely be willing to pick up another book by this author and can’t recommend Home of the Happy enough!! 

Source: Audiobook from Audible

(P.S. You can read tons of books—including ones written by me—by trying a free trial of Kindle Unlimited!)