From the beloved author of Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come and the popular Substack It’ll Be Fun, They Said comes a poignant and laugh-out-loud exploration of what it really means to be happy in an age of anxiety—and the unlikely places joy shows up when you go looking for it

What would make my life happier? This is the question Jessica Pan asked when the long walks, Netflix binges, therapy, and bowls of carbonara weren’t working. After the pandemic and finally free from the darkness of postpartum anxiety and depression, she discovered that she felt numb and joy eluded her. In It’ll Be Fun, They Said, Jess chronicles the year she spent putting herself directly in joy’s path with adventures like:


- A pilgrimage to Finland, known as the world’s happiest country, where she interviews Finns, jumps into cold lakes, and attempts to face her insecurities about going nude in the sauna—all to find out the Nordic secrets
- An experiment in “Deep Talk” with her parents, using research-backed questions to become closer to them, based on the longest-running study of happiness from the Harvard Study of Adult Development
- A crash course in adult hobbies like pottery lessons and roller skating that help her confront perfectionism and rediscover play
- Falling back in love with the human race from behind the register of an indie bookstore in London
- Conversations with psychologists, behavioral scientists, philosophers, and other “happiness mentors” who guide Jess on her experiments to find out what can really, truly benefit our state of mind


It’ll Be Fun, They Said is about learning how to make room for many different types of happiness, even when life remains complicated.