A group of female Norwegian retirees, who haven’t been friends since high school fifty years ago, end up living together on a cocoa plantation in Fiji.

It’s refreshing to read a book about people in their 60s/70s (particularly women) who are still living their lives, learning new things, and having adventures. It’s true-to-life and should be more frequently represented in art and literature. Unfortunately, that’s the only nice thing that can be said about Pieces of Happiness.

There are two main reasons why this book fails.

First of all, a lot of the characters’ behaviors and actions are just so thoroughly unrealistic that the book ends up coming across as nonsensical and ridiculous—even for a work of fiction.

The main premise of the whole story itself defies logic. Women who have lived in Norway their entire lives abandon everything they have ever known, fly halfway around the world to start over in an unknown country, and go to live in someone else’s home—just because they get a random note from someone they haven’t seen in 50 years? Yeah, that’s believable.

What’s even more unbelievable is that a loving daughter would acquiesce to sending her struggling, dementia-suffering mother across the globe to live with people who are essentially strangers in a remote area of the Pacific without access to reasonable healthcare facilities. I don’t even let my own mother walk through a parking lot by herself if I can help it—& she’s much younger than these characters and in perfect health. Any child treating her beloved and ailing mother this way just defies reason.

Even more unreasonable is Lizbeth’s reaction to being assaulted. While walking home one night, she is mugged at knifepoint by a local thug who wants to buy a pair of fancy rugby shoes. Lizbeth has been attacked and robbed…what does she do? Does she contact the authorities? No. Does she become a nervous wreck and require therapy? No. Does she do anything reasonable? No. All she does is start sexually fantasizing about the goon who victimized her. What??? Outrageous doesn’t even begin to describe it! It’s a sad reality that many men just assume that women are attracted to men who harass and brutalize them…and women all over the world are forced to deal and suffer with the consequences of this erroneous assumption on a daily basis. In this case, the fact that the author who promotes this distorted and disturbed way of thinking is herself a woman makes this subplot all the more vile and reprehensible.

The second reason this book fails is because none of the characters are particularly sympathetic. Almost all of the main characters are victims of some form of domestic abuse; oddly, they all actively participate—and, in some cases, even revel—in their abuse.

Lizbeth tolerates a husband who openly humiliates her, verbally abuses her, and destroys her relationships with her own children simply because he is wealthy and enables her to live the lifestyle she always wanted.

Sina goes to work for the man who raped her at their high school prom, and then proceeds to fall victim to financial abuse at the hands of her own son. And, by the end of the book when she has supposedly learned her lesson and stood up to her deadbeat son, she is still doling out money to support him!

And Kat, the recent widow who invites all of the other women to come live with her in Fiji, is even worse. She spends years idolizing an abusively controlling, older ‘husband’ and following him around the world doing ‘community projects’, denying herself the children she wanted, and pretending he was always thinking of her. Purchasing the cocoa plantation was a vanity project on his part, but he went out of his way to convince her he was doing it all for her—even going so far as to name the place Kat’s House in her ‘honor’.
Eventually, Kat discovers the idealized relationship she has concocted in her mind is a lie…the paragon of virtue she has deified her entire adult life has actually fathered an illegitimate daughter with one of the native women and refuses to acknowledge the child. When Kat finally confronts him, he has the nerve to walk out on her and dismiss her as "hysterical" and, therefore, beneath his notice—how dare she bother him and throw his own vices in his face! Does Kat finally grow up and realize that she has lived most of her life deluded and disrespected by this man? No, she continues remembering him with dreamy fondness. The book actually ends with Kat apologizing to HIM via a traditional Fijian ceremony…and with a newborn being named after him. Yikes…these women just love being victims & it makes them—and consequently the book—very unpleasant. ( )

Norwegian expat Kat has lived all over the world with her husband Niklas. She’s a widow now, and living on a cocoa plantation in Fiji. On impulse, she sends an invitation to four high school friends to join her in Fiji and live out their senior years caring for each other. Amazingly, Sina, Maya, Ingrid, and Lisbeth all agree to the proposal. Each one of the women brings psychological baggage with her, and this plays out over the course of the novel.

This book reminded me of all the reasons I usually avoid women’s fiction. I wanted to read a Hallmark movie and escape to a Pacific island for a few hours. I ended up with Dr. Phil instead. The women interacted in pairs, but never really as a group. Readers spend most of the time inside the womens’ heads as they think about past regrets and future worries. I found Ingrid especially disturbing as she seems to suffer from a dissociative disorder, with an alternate personality she calls “Wildrid.” I did enjoy the narration by Jilly Bond, whose voice reminded me very much of Orlagh Cassidy’s Maisie Dobbs. ( )

I absolutely adored this story and the setting was beautiful. There were quite a few surprises in this book not to mention drama. I enjoyed reading this and look forward to the next book by this author. ( )

I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway

Sina, Maya, Lisbeth and Ingrid each receive letters from Kat asking them to leave everything behind and come join her in Fiji.
It hasn't been long since Kat's husband has passed away and she is hoping to spend the remainder of her years together with her oldest friends.
On the surface, the idea made me think of Golden Girls.
But each of the women has problems she can't just run away from. Each brings her problem with her.
Between them they are dealing with, incurable sickness, a manipulative adult child, infidelity, and just general unhappiness and boredom.

They all decide to leave everything at home to join Kat.
Soon they are all dealing with their own issues and each other's.

It took me a while to get into this book. Even at that point, it wasn't quite what I was expecting. There wasn't really much talk of chocolate. Maybe it's silly but I was really looking forward to the chocolate making storyline and it was second fiddle to the women's dramas.
Also, I didn't really care for the "Wildred" story. Wildred was Ingrid's wild side. There were already plenty of characters in this book, I didn't really love one of the characters having two personalities.

I really did want to love this. I appreciate the idea of the story, I just didn't get really into it.
( )

Five women from Norway, who were childhood friends and are now in their sixties, move in together on a cocoa farm in Fiji, where they plan to start a chocolate business while reinventing their lives and reconciling themselves to how their lives panned out. A beautiful story set on a tropical island in the South Pacific. Enjoyed. ( )