The House of Happy Endings

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House of Happy Endings

Meanwhile, Penny finds herself attracting lots of attention from Jewish teens at the Bar Mitzvahs; Dave and Alex try to get their relationship back on track, but things end badly when they take Jane's advice of role playing. The gang celebrates Thanksgiving by watching a previously unaired episode of "Real World" they appeared in back in college -- and, long after the fact, learn some shocking new dirt about one another. Meanwhile, Dave's attempt to give his friends an authentic "Navajo Thanksgiving" ends in disaster. Penny meets a terrific new guy, Pete Nick Zano , but her frantic attempts to hide that she's wearing a prescription helmet because of her concussion limits their potential romance; Jane tries too hard to break into the "boys club" at her new job at the car dealership; Max and Dave's fist bumping issues bring back painful childhood memories.

With Jane and Alex's parents Christopher McDonald and Julie Hagerty planning to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the family mattress business, Jane struggles to find Serbian-themed jokes to make her humorless dad laugh at her toast, while Alex quietly informs Dave that she hasn't told her mom and dad that they're back together.

Meanwhile, Max is feeling left out now that Penny is in a stable relationship with Pete. The plan backfires when Penny ruins her relationship with Pete on her own. Feeling guilty, Max helps Penny win back Pete. The gang is shocked to discover that Jane was born on Christmas Day and has been lying about her birthday this whole time because she hated being overshadowed by the day. So the group makes an extra special effort to throw her a Christmas-free birthday celebration - but will the holiday spirit prove to be too strong to fight?

Meanwhile, Max is trying to kick his eggnog addiction and Dave helps Penny pick out the perfect Christmas gift for Pete. After Brad and Penny accidentally break Alex's beloved childhood memento, they try to glue it back together before she returns from her "Rom-Com Con" romantic comedy convention. But they go from just being clumsy to "birderers" after Tyler, Alex's racist parrot, keels over and dies from the glue fumes.

Can they cover up the crime before Alex returns?

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Meanwhile, Jane and Dave try a little too hard to find a perfect match for Max. When a hot young pop star buys a dress at Alex's shop, Penny sees the chance for some favorable publicity, but her efforts backfire in a big way; Jane and Derrick take Max on a tour of Chicago's themed gay bars to help him find his gay identity; Brad and Dave try to be "men" and fix things around the house. Alex signs everyone up to participate in the Northside Kickball Classic tournament. Max appoints himself as manager and struggles to get his players up to scratch with Dave's history of freezing during games resurfacing, Penny being more interested in trying to meet cute guys, and Jane defecting to another, more winning team.

Meanwhile, Max gets a cool new roommate, Chase Mark-Paul Gosselaar , who immediately upgrades the apartment with expensive furniture and gadgets. The gang is in awe, but when Chase suddenly disappears, they start snooping into his private life. And Penny attempts to hang out with Pete's "normal" friends. After the gang pranks Max into thinking he won a big lotto jackpot, he vows revenge when they least suspect it. Everyone dreads what might happen next; Alex decides to cut a deal with Max to avoid payback. And Max's plotting gets in the way of the big event Penny's been waiting for, a proposal from Pete.

When newly-engaged Penny learns that Pete wants to elope instead of having a wedding, would-be wedding planner Jane takes the lovebirds and the rest of the gang to a wedding expo in hopes that Pete will change his mind. Meanwhile, Max and Brad are stuck with a "couples pass" and end up in the gay wedding part of the expo, and Alex and Dave are forced to deal with their own unresolved wedding issues. Inspired by his 23rd favorite movie, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit , Brad enlists the help of the gang who drive up business and attendance.

To help with their habit of constantly texting the men in their lives, and thus "giving up the power", Penny and Max start drinking NocheTussin, a black market cough medicine from South America. The medicine put them to sleep and prevents them from texting, but their tolerance to the cough syrup becomes a problem when they can no longer sleep more than a few hours. Alex winds up using the kids from the gym in a sweatshop to produce custom jewellery.

Max pretends to be straight and begins dating a cute girl named Katie Abby Elliott , after finding out she has access to Chicago Bulls season tickets. Penny and Brad think what Max is doing is terrible and that Katie deserves to know the truth and attempt to out him in front of Katie. Meanwhile, Alex is tired of being seen as the "dimwitted blonde" by the gang, so she becomes well read to prove them wrong. However, her newfound knowledge completely throws off the group dynamic and nobody likes it. Max starts going to Alex and Jane's hairdresser, Krisjahn RuPaul to get gossip on them, but Max's inability to keep the gossip to himself starts a war between the Kerkovich sisters; after Penny accidentally loses Dave's "Steak Me Home" truck, she helps him find who stole it.

Alex urges Penny to invite her estranged father, Roy Andy Richter to come to the wedding. Jane is skeptical but warms up to Roy later on after he buys Penny the wedding dress she has been eyeing for weeks. Penny asks Roy to walk her down the aisle, but when Roy won't stop trying to offer to pay for wedding expenses, she becomes angry with him, getting into an argument which ends with them deciding that he shouldn't attend.

Dave asks for help from Brad and Max to sabotage a rival food truck. During an operation to have the rival food truck's meat supply swapped with offal, Max runs into and falls for the rival owner's son. A food fight breaks out between the two food trucks on game day and in the chaos Roy jumps in front of a tomato about to hit Penny. Though still not wanting him to walk her down the aisle she would still like Roy to be there. This is true with the Garis family. Both Grandmother and Grandfather have been successful authors for most of their lives.

Their son, the author's father, has publ I love how this book is written. Their son, the author's father, has published, but he is never able to reach the level of success of his parents. I can identify with the author as she observes the members of her family. She needs to know them and to understand their motives, frailties, and destructive pasts. I understand that need to find the truth in our families, and the desire to know what makes those closest to us 'tick'.

The father's downward spiral into mental illness is painful to watch.

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The author handles all of this beautifully. In her quest to understand the havoc around her, she manages to relate the story with a kind and gentle writing style. She and her brothers bear many scars from their parents' inability to provide a healthy home for them. It's a unique look into just how debilitating and destructive mental illness is within an otherwise loving family. Initially, the appeal for me was to read about the family responsible for making me happy and keeping me company as I discovered the world of books as a child.

It was a real treat to discover that the family lived in places with which I am familiar. They had a home at one point in Cheshire, Ct. The author's mom's family resided in Naugatuck, Ct. The family also has stints in Saybrook and Lyme, both in Connecticut! So, not only was I able to lose myself in the true story of the Garis family, but I easily pictured the locations mentioned throughout the book.

Thank you to Leslie Garis for this honest sharing of the most personal subject imaginable; her talented, less-than-perfect family. Jul 28, Allison rated it liked it. This memoir is interesting for it's historical value. It is written by the granddaughter of the authors of the famous children's series Uncle Wiggly and The Bobbsey Twins. So the memoir basically focuses on her troubled father, who felt he could never live up to the success of his parents and could never get over the emotional abuse dished out by his mother.

His parents supported him financially for m This memoir is interesting for it's historical value. His parents supported him financially for most of his life and when they came to live with him when they were old, he basically fell apart. He was a semi-successful playwright on his own, but felt it was never enough.

The House of Happy Endings

He was prone to deep depressions, addicted to barbiturates and was hospitalized many times. The point of view of the novel changes from the voice of a little girl who worships her father to the voice of a young woman who pities him and can't wait to get away and start her own life. The title of the novel is ironic, because while all the Uncle Wiggly and Bobbsey Twin stories end happily, the house where everyone lived and wrote was full of despair.

Oct 21, Jane rated it really liked it. And what a book! The Bunny Rabbit Gentleman's dark underbelly is fully exposed here, and it makes compelling reading. A classic fifties family on the surface, and. Grampy repeatedly being dragged home from the local bars. Grandma terrorizing everyone in the house.

Daddy addicted to pills. Mom having crippling dizzy spells. Kids being kicked out of multiple schools. And little Leslie, spying on all this from the dumb-waiter. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been to write this book as well as she manages to do.

But then - she comes from a family of writers! Nov 13, R. Hartmann rated it really liked it. Lillian used her real name on some of them, as did Howard on the Uncle Wiggily books. Most of the content focuses on Howard, her father, whose bouts of depression and elation made for a rocky home life for all concerned. Quite the opposite from the happy portraits he painted for his little readers. I rarely read non-fiction and I don't know what drew me to this book.

I knew nothing about either the author or her famous American writing family.

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I am so glad I did buy and read it. It is an amazing, brutally honest portrait of the truth behind the facade of a 'happy' family. Tolstoy's 'every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way' certainly applies to the Garis household. The observant eyes of the watchful child that Leslie Garis was miss nothing in this house of inevitably unhappy endings.

In beautiful prose she brings to life both characters and settings. Ms Garis does her family no disservice by her honesty. She shows remarkable sensitivity and has incredible empathy with the frailities of all the adults that surrounded her upbringing. Some books one reads for the prose, some for the story - happily you'll find both in 'The House of Happy Endings'. Dec 11, Steffi Rubin rated it really liked it. Gracefully told account of the family of Roger Garis, son of prodigious children's book authors and victim of his parents' morbid expectations of him.

The emotional and psychological devolution of the father and family are terribly sad but interestingly observed and described by daughter Leslie. Her perspective and respect for her family--enormously non-judgmental considering the toll it took on her, her brothers and her mother--keep the memoir from becoming melodramatic or self-indulgent. It pr Gracefully told account of the family of Roger Garis, son of prodigious children's book authors and victim of his parents' morbid expectations of him.

It provides an interesting history of the area around Amherst, MA, not the least of which is the fact that Robert Frost drops in to spend time with her grandfather.

Apr 08, Lisa rated it liked it. No fancy genre-busting writing, but a good straightforward literary family disintegration story. She has a light touch, which kept it from degenerating into some horrorshow of dysfunctional melodrama -- at times it seems almost dispassionate. I never got all that involved with the characters, as interesting as they and their stories were.

I hear a whooole lot of therapy under the surface I'm sure the only way to have survived growing up like that was to learn how to keep it all a bit at arm's No fancy genre-busting writing, but a good straightforward literary family disintegration story. I'm sure the only way to have survived growing up like that was to learn how to keep it all a bit at arm's length. Jun 30, Nora rated it it was amazing. Share this Rating Title: Happy Endings Are a Rarity 6. Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Edit Cast Cast overview: Twin 1 Brian Elder Twin 2 Austin Pleasants Crucified Party Guy Matt Kiser Edit Storyline When his girlfriend visits him during winter break, an agoraphobic twentysomething begins to suspect that his house is haunted.

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