Can a woman be smart, empowered, and happy?

Happiness has become a serious business. Where 20th-century psychology focused on depression and illness, in the new millennium scientists have begun focusing on "positive psychology" - the study of happiness. Ariel Gore first became intrigued by this subject when she discovered that a class on positive psychology was the most popular course on the Harvard campus.

As she read deeper into the topic, she noticed something disturbing: everyone in this happy land was a man. Worse still, some of these new "experts" seemed hell-­bent on proving that women with traditional values and bread-winning husbands - those who had made "an effort to expect less", according to one sociologist - were more content than women with feminist values. The more she read, the more she wondered: Can a woman be smart, empowered, and happy?

Determined to find out, Gore began her own "study in living" - a journey into the feminine history, science, and experience of happiness. Her results, chronicled with humor and curiosity in F--k Happiness, are by turns fascinating and enriching. A woman's happiness may not come easily and it may not take the forms prescribed by popular culture. But, as Gore discovers, it is not only possible but necessary.

F--k Happiness is a smart, no­-nonsense, uplifting study of the real secret of joy and whether it’s truly at odds with the goals of modern women.