Happiness has become big business. Books, psychologists, consultants, and even governments promote scientific findings into it. The problem is that almost all of this science is performed by and for straight white men. And some of the most vocal of these experts suggest that women can become happier by adopting traditional gender values and eschewing feminism.

Sceptical of this hypothesis, Ariel Gore immersed herself in the optimism industrial complex, combing the research, reading the history, interviewing the thinkers, and exploring her own and her friends’ personal experiences and desires. The result is a nuanced, thoughtful, and inspiring account of what happiness means to women.

For readers of Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me and Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright Side, this is a provocative, persuasive look at how and why women’s desires are more complex than we are led to believe.