Not a perfect book, but a really solid debut. Despite the 'happy' in the title, it's not a 'happy' book, of course. I usually like those sorts of books a lot, and I did 'like' this one too. I felt, though, that besides the character of Aaron, the other character were 'lacking' a lot. At the same time I realize that that is because of the very specific point of view in this book...a bit of a Catch 22 sort of thing. 
 Probably a 3.5 star book for me: solid and good.