Happiness for Beginners

A year after getting divorced,Helen Carpenterthirty-twolets her annoyingten years younger brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It’s supposed to be a chance for her to pull herself together againbut when she discovers that her brother’s even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the tripshe can’t imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen’s well-behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming where she will survive mosquito infestationsa surprise summer blizzardand a group of sorority girls. Yetdespite everythingthe vast wilderness has a way of making Helen’s own little life seem biggertoo. Andsomehow the people who annoy her the most start teaching her the very things she needs to learn. Like how to stand up for herself. And how being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes you just have to get reallyreally lost before you can even have a hope of being found.