Happy Hour

This is a gorgeously written book about two best friends doing nothing in particular. Isa and Gala arrive in New York City intertwined and allied.

They whirl through all the requisite stops of the party girl layabout lifestyle. I was fascinated by the friendship’s closeness; Isa and Gala know each other’s quirks and fears in staggering intimacy. They function as a unit, as a “we.” Isa’s aimlessly wandering through life, but she isn’t in it alone, and that’s comforting to me.

Together, Isa and Gala turn aimlessness into freedom. It’s a detail-packed, slow-burning portrait of how we build identity together,… show more.

Isa, the narrator of Happy Hour, and her best friend Gala are recent transplants for New York City, undocumented, and working whatever under-the-table job they can find to make next month’s rent while balancing their main pastime: socializing.

Granados is an expert at portraying how young women find and wield whatever power they can access, whether through their beauty, their sense of humor, or the clear-eyed vision of the social machinations around them.