Eat more tangerines. Divorce your wife. Cut off your right index finger. The Apricity machine’s recommendations are often surprising, but they’re 99.97% guaranteed to make you happier. Pearl works for Apricity – meaning happiness is her job – but her teenage son Rhett seems more content to be unhappy, and refuses to submit to the test. Is Pearl failing as a mother and in her job – and does she even believe in happiness any more?

Warm, witty and utterly charming, The Happiness Machine is where A Visit from the Goon Squad meets Where’d You Go Bernadette.

First published as Tell the Machine Goodnight.