If It Makes You Happy

Thirty-year-old Michelle Cadell is one of the novel’s main characters and the first-person narrator of chapters titled with her first name. Michelle starts the novel reeling from several life changes: Her mother, Birdie, has just died, and Michelle and her husband, Allen, have just divorced. Michelle takes a leave of absence from her job at an advertising agency in Seattle, Washington, to temporarily relocate to Copper Run, Vermont, where she plans to run her late mother’s inn, Bird & Breakfast, until her younger sister, Sara, finishes art school and can take over the business. In Copper Run, Michelle feels overwhelmed and out of place, unsure where she belongs and if she’ll be able to overcome the Challenges of Starting Over After Loss.

Michelle is a steely, stoic character who struggles to make friends and emote openly. Whereas her younger sister has all of their mother’s good traits—“gentleness. Her positivity. Her excitable, creative side”—Michelle sees herself as “the frigid eldest daughter” (8). She has agreed to run Bird & Breakfast but fears that she doesn’t have any of the proper traits to be working in hospitality. When she first arrives in Copper Run, she doesn’t engage with her guests, ignores the townspeople’s attempts to welcome her, and tells her neighbor—the handsome baker Cliff Burke—that she does not need his help.