100 Days of Happiness (Thorndike Press Large Print Core Series)

I have terminal cancer, though I hope to have lots more than 100 days. When I saw the title of this book I was attracted to it because I already decided that I am spending every day I still have totally happy. The book turned out to be very different from what I expected, but with its Italian humor and charm it was a wonderful read for me. I would not only recommend this book to terminal cancer patients but everyone who wants to get an idea what we go through.

The author takes what could have been a maudlin, self absorbed pity party and turns it into a hilarious, moving, provoking and ultimately beautiful...self absorbed pity party. But it's more than that. Throughout the 100 days, he remains the flawed, human being he has always been (that we all are), but little by little, he lets go of his Self and channels his remaining time and energy - and all his love - onto the people he holds most dear. Thoroughly believable, Brizzi injects one man's ordinary life with bittersweet awareness of the ultimate loss and in the process, gives the reader permission to ponder the big question of their own mortality.

This book is unique in that it looks at life from a cancer patient's point of view. SPOILER ALERT - it also addresses assisted suicide, which some might find hard to accept.Lucio is a 40 something year old man who has been diagnosed with liver cancer. It is inoperable. His doctor tell him he has approximately 100 days left. It is a beautiful telling of what he decides to do with those 100 days. I was impressed with the author's compassion for his characters. There are parts of this novel where you will laugh out loud and others where you will be mopping your eyes. I would highly recommend this novel, but if you are giving it to someone who is terminally ill, do so with caution. It can be a little overwhelming.

I can’t believe the number of 5 star reviews on this book. As one review said it was an ordinary life. That is why I found it so incredibly boring. Absolutely nothing interesting happened and I forced myself to finish it. One would think from reading the description of this book that something at least out of the ordinary would happen at some point, but for me that was not the case.

During my reading of this book, I laughed often even out loud. Then I could not help but sob, some tears of happiness and others of sadness. I was so happy when Paola forgave Lucio. It was the best part! I guess I cried most when Lucio wrote the letter to his children. That man loved and loved his family!

I absolutely loved this book! It's one of those that you'll read again. Your emotions run the gamut, but it's ultimately not a sad book. The characters come alive as you get to know them. I couldn't put this book down . I'm hoping this amazing author writes a sequel, translated to English. I want this story to continue because I'm invested in the characters ... I want to know where they go from here. That's how good this book is. Loved it!

If death is inevitable -- and It appears to be -- then maybe it should be contemplated rather than ignored or feared. This is a romantic, unrealistic, and idealistic tale of death. But in the midst of day-to-day sameness and routines and worries, it is nice to drift for a few hours into a world still promising of adventure and redemption and do- overs. I smiled, laughed, mused, and cried during the reading. For me, those emotions emerge only when a tale is well told.

The story let's you look at a regular life through the eyes of someone having to let go and leave behind all the people he loved. It's simple and beautiful.

This book landed on my kindle like a wish on a penny, tossed into a wishing well on whim. I donut really remember why I read this book. I was searching online for a structured ‘100 days of Happiness’ model, that I could follow. I wanted to see if I could find happiness in every day and record this. I failed at doing anything like that but I did read this book somewhere along that road.I have read a lot of books about death and dying, in my pursuit of unravelling and understanding the death of my partner in 2008. I’ve done a lot of memoirs, in my time. One of the best was Joan Didion’s ‘The Magical Year of Thinking.’ Joan’s husband, John Gregory Dunne, died of a heart attack at the dinner table after they returned from visiting their daughter, who was in hospital. Joan tells the story about what happened next, after the fatal, tragic cardiac event that stole her beloved friend away from life so unexpectedly, so suddenly and so ordinarily.I donut think that I wanted to read a memoir about the black crab, cancer, when Signor Brizzi landed on my browser like a wasp on a white wine spritzer at a birthday picnic. Reviews of the novel were ambiguous, teasing. I thought that I would be running with scissors and exploring wallflower perks when I started to read this novel. I thought that Brizzi might be a little bit Wes Anderson, a little bit kooky, a little bit kitsch. When it had sunk in that I was reading a dying man’s memoir I did feel a little bit like I had been tricked, punked.Like Dave Eggers, ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’ the painfully acute comedy of tragedy, breaks through the song and verse of the story like magic light beams. ‘One Hundred Days of Happiness’ is an epic portrayal of a man consumed by the ego of his own mortality. It’s also a book about one man’s devastating love affair with hot, luscious, lip-smacking sugary treats. The donut.Brizzi’s wife’s silence throughout the ordeal of her husband’s failure at marriage and life, touches so many familiar feelings and experiences of the human condition. It’s a brilliant read, beautifully naive and profound in all of the right places. The selfishness of man, the vulnerabilities, the perfect flaws.Just make sure that you have tissues and donuts to hand.

Before saying anything about this, I must admit that although I've had my fair share of drama in life, I've never gone through this specific experience with someone I was close to, so I might not know what I'm taking about. What I found soppy and taxing could be very realistic. I finished this book when I was on the train and scared the people around me when I started crying while reading the last couple of pages (although in true British fashion, nobody made eye contact with me).Some parts of this story were quite difficult to comprehend. For example, when the main character finds out that what he has been eating was not healthy and he is totally taken aback by that, I wanted to throw the book away. How can a thirty something man not know that fried food, sugar, flour etc are not good for health? Fried doughnuts? He needs to google these to confirm what the doctor says?I think the narrator was not necessarily a likeable character. He was truly an average man, not very interesting or charming. This could be what makes this story so touching though.

Truly beautiful (and I’m usually an unemotional type of guy)....I have read every page, hoping for the “countdown” of chapters to be slower and slower’ so that I could savour every word.

Brilliant read despite the maudlin subject- a wonderful honest book about approaching death and how it transforms families and their lives I could not put it down and wished the story could have been longer!!!

A lovely book, well translated.This book will make you laugh, cry, think, and warm your heart. A delight to read.

beautiful book. happy, sad and makes you think about what is, and isn't important. Buy it!

Absolutely beautiful, thought at first it would be morbid and very sad, but I could not stop reading. *****

Up down up down wonderful book to the very end,read it!

It's fine

Fantastic read.Sad& funny.

Sad but uplifting

The preamble describes this ebook as:"A novel about life and love that reminds us what matters most". Cradled in a man's last hundred days on earth, the story attempts to draw the reader along for a pleasant and joyous ride as the central character magically fabricates the joy of life.The major flaw in creating the central character occurs at the novel's foundation. At the moment of diagnosis with terminal cancer, Lucio is enjoying a hot sexual affair with a client ergo and living a lie to his wife, children, relatives and friends. An epiphany occurs along with news of his looming death as he sets a goal to have (force, intimidate), his wife foregive him. Over the following 100 days Lucio contrives various tricks and charades to win back his wife's affections. Whether the story fails for cross-cultural reasons or what, it failed to leverage any sympathy or build trust for its central character. Not only is he keen to whitewash over his infidelities but he stops at nothing to manufacture an outcome that only a mad egotist could portray as forgiveness. The deception is ultimately upon himself.

Makes you want to treasure your today's. I laughed & cried so much. Looking forward to many of your book. Kudos!

Well written, lots of food for thought!

Beautifully paced and despite the sad, thought provoking subject matter of early death avoids the trap of being overly sentimental.