It'll Be Fun, They Said: A Worrier's Journey to Finding Joy (Despite Everything)

From the beloved author of Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come and voice behind the wildly popular Substack, It’ll Be Fun, They Said, comes a joyful, honest, and laugh-out-loud exploration of what it really means to be happy in an age of anxiety—and the unlikely places joy shows up when you go looking for it

What would make my life happier? This is the question our fearless guide, Jessica Pan, asked when the long walks, Netflix binges, therapy, and bowls of carbonara weren’t working. After the pandemic and on the other side of postpartum anxiety and depression, she discovered that while the panic had lifted, joy hadn’t returned. She wasn’t unraveling anymore—she was numb, unsettled by how far away pleasure felt. And she realized she wasn’t alone. In It’ll Be Fun, They Said, Jess chronicles the year she spent putting herself directly in joy’s path by trying new things, asking uncomfortable questions, and reporting back with her trademark humor and honesty, even when she would rather stay home.

Along the way, we join Jess on a very human search for happiness with adventures like:

• A pilgrimage to Finland, known as the world’s happiest country, where she sweats through saunas, plunges into icy seas, and asks what happiness looks like in other cultures.
• An experiment with Deep Talk with her parents, using research-backed questions to move past polite small talk and into the conversations we postpone until it feels too late.
• A crash course in adult hobbies that helped her confront perfectionism, embarrassment, and the strange grief of realizing how rarely grown-ups let themselves play.
• Conversations with “happiness mentors” to test what actually helps when anxiety stubbornly refuses to go away.

It’ll Be Fun, They Said isn’t a book about fixing yourself or chasing constant positivity. It’s about learning how to laugh again, how to stay open, and how to make room for happiness even when life remains complicated. As Jess shows us, joy isn’t found all at once. It’s practiced, awkwardly at first, until it starts to feel like yours.