Review of Will This Make You Happy by Tanya Bush

*Will This Make You Happy* by Tanya Bush (2026). Published by Chronicle Books.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

This blog post is interesting to me because lately, I’ve been struggling to get in my reading time. I was working for the longest time as a freelancer and contractor, but recently pivoted to an 8-5 job where I’m in an office. It’s not hybrid, so I’m always at home trying to put the puzzle pieces together of how I’ll get my reading done. I also continue working on this blog when I’m not at work, so the Instagram reels I’m fed about a 5-9 feel too real right now.

Anyways, I am trying to find that time to read here and there. Somehow I’m still on track for my Goodreads goal, even though I’ve been slowly giving up on the notion of reading goals in life. I think they can be a little too much pressure and takes the fun off of reading at the end of the day, and I want to read because I want to stay in touch with literature while also pursuing my side career as a writer.

Sometimes one of the best ways I look for books is to simply roam around the shelves of my local library. A lot of my older blog posts would have this introduction where I talked about how I would just wander the fiction and nonfiction sections of the library to find new books.

And that’s how I found Will This Make You Happy by Tanya Bush. I was unaware of who Bush was, but the book seemed interesting, so I picked up a copy! It was a quick read for me, as I read it like a straight book rather than a cookbook.

Let’s get into the review.

In a series of essays and recipes, Tanya Bush describes her journey towards becoming a more “serious” baker.

So I would actually describe this book as more nonfiction—if I were to talk about what made it memorable, it’s the memoir aspect of the book. There’s also a lot more narrative work (I called them essays above, as they’re split into seasons) being done than actual recipes compared to the usual cookbooks I pick up.

That’s my take—feel free to let me know if you think otherwise. Anyways, Tanya Bush is writing this book about a period in her early twenties when she was stuck in an uninspired rut. It’s very much giving depression the way she was describing her feelings and actions as someone who also struggled with similar feelings.

She’s also in a long-term relationship that feels like it’s on the edge of splintering throughout the narrative. As she continues to suffer and try to find ways to regulate the sad emotions she’s feeling, she decides to sit down and bake a cake.

It’s not a perfect cake, but it’s something. And it’s the beginning of her baking adventures. We see throughout the seasons as she tries to bake the perfect confections in her small New York City apartment, making her feel like a failure at times, but also someone who is able to make something incredibly delicious when she sits down and has the chance.

There’s one point where she goes off and does a baking internship in Italy that’s actually pretty much exploitative labor, which is an interesting tangent from her life and boyfriend back in New York City.

All of this is to say: there are recipes of some of the items she’s baked while in these seasons of life. I unfortunately did not get the chance to bake of the recipes she had while having my copy of the book from the library, but I would love to know how they would turn out!

Overall Thoughts

As I wrote before, I cannot vouch for this book as a cookbook, but I can talk about its elements of memoir incorporated throughout. While the illustrations are really cute, I don’t know it if makes up for the writing style. I thought it was a bit too choppy and loose for me, almost as if this were someone who hasn’t spent a ton of time refining their craft as a writer.

Which can be fine. Bush does drop us into the world she’s created, whether it’s her apartment or Italy, and she does get the point across. I just wanted more from this as a memoir, and while it does make sense for the hybrid medium, it just wasn’t for me.

All of this is to say: while I didn’t find this the best book for me, I could see someone else enjoying this a lot. Go pick it up if you have the chance, bake a few recipes in it and let me know how they are if you get to them before me. They looked great!

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