When the World Was Happy follows CheChe and his twin sister Emma, who have always been happy with their quiet, close-knit life, surrounded by their family, books, and a small group of friends. But after a devastating school shooting at their high school leaves CheChe without a leg and both twins grieving friends they’ve lost, their lives are irrevocably changed. As they try to navigate grief and healing, they find comfort in their family, their friendships, and the little community they build around themselves.
Along the way, CheChe begins to discover new sides of himself—from relearning how to walk to falling in love and forming unexpected friendships—and realises that even after tragedy, there can still be room for humor, kindness, love, and hope.
Writing this review is incredibly difficult, for a multitude of reasons. While I finished the book back in early July, I did not write the review until September… when the author had already passed away.
When the World Was Happy manages to do something that only a few books have managed to do for me—making me think how I would have reacted if this was an obligatory book to read for everyone in school. I didn’t expect how often I thought to myself “I wish we read this in school” or “I wonder how my teacher would have asked about CheChe’s emotional and physical trauma”—the subject matter, even beyond the school shooting, would lend itself so well to classroom discussions. Sáenz knows how to explore topics like racism, homophobia, and bigotry, and how all this can not only form violence but also infect a whole community. Yet paired with this is the incredible perseverance of hope and the power of family to help you survive in the aftermath of tragedy.
Sáenz’s prose is always incredibly beautiful, raw and real. Fans of Ari and Dante will find just as much heart and emotion packed into every sentence that sometimes feels like a hug and others like a gut punch.
We follow the characters in the aftermath of the school shooting and see not only how it has impacted their life, their physical and mental health, but also how it has changed the way they interact with the world and with each other. You get different glimpses at the school shooting itself, but the story is focused on how these characters manage to survive and try to move on. It’s as excruciating as it is healing to jump from CheChe to Emma’s perspective and to see how they approach just… living after everything that has happened.
There are so many passages that made me put down the book and just sit with the emotions it evoked. From the hopeful to the macabre, from finding spaces to still have humor and laughter when it feels almost illegal to feel joy, from the “how do I even live with what happened” to “I can’t believe I couldn’t protect my twin more than that”, it all just felt like an emotional rollercoaster I was loathe to get off of. Grief, healing and closure are at the core of this story and Sáenz manages to depict it in a realistic, yet comforting way.
Sure, there were moments where I didn’t really connect with the characters because they seemed wise beyond their years. Tragedy does have a way of doing that but I was missing the teen voices of uncertainty and anxiety a bit as they seemed to handle everything almost too much like it would be in a textbook, which took me a bit out of the narrative as I questioned whether teens would react like that. Nevertheless, this book absolutely took my heart by storm and will stay with me for a long time.
I think that, as far as last novels written go, Benjamin Alire Sáenz is leaving this world with a story that hopefully will shape generations to come.
Leaving a legacy with a book that is as much about the scary reality we live in and face every day as about how to find a way back to normal after horrendous hardship, When the World Was Happy is a poignant and relevant story that won’t soon be forgotten.
When the World Was Happy is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of October 13th 2026.
Will you be picking up When the World Was Happy? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis
A “heartrending yet beautiful” (School Library Journal, starred review) tale of twins and their group of friends who are forced to navigate life, relationships, and grief after their world is turned upside down from New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
CheChe knows that he and his twin sister Emma lead an unusual life. They enjoy spending time with their parents and grandparents, love to read, and don’t have a huge circle of friends—and they’re happy. Then, just a few months after they turn seventeen, three gunmen show up one morning at their El Paso, Texas, high school, and everything changes.
CheChe loses a leg, and both he and Emma have friends who die. Suddenly, the world feels like a very different place. But what they find hasn’t changed—or has only gotten deeper—is their love for their family, their close friends, and one another, and as they begin to heal, they create their own little community, one that wields the power of humor, kindness, and hope.
CheChe finds himself doing all kinds of things he never expected from his junior year: relearning to walk, falling in love with the boy he’s nursed a longtime crush on, making friends with a kid he always found intimidating. By the end of this life-changing school year, none of them will be the same, and many of them will have found their voices in ways they never imagined.
