Agnes Mariakaki’s best-selling and much beloved debut book starts with a bold statement: we deserve to be happy because we were born to be happy, and one of the best ways to achieve that is by studying the happiness and the unhappiness of other people.

The cynics amongst us might question that statement and that is perfectly normal, says Mariakaki in the warm accepting way that has made her one of Greece’s most beloved YouTube psychology stars.

Her method in this book is simple yet transformative: a step-by-step guide that helps readers reconcile with their own traumas and destructive narratives by making them part of other people’s negative experiences and the ways they brilliantly overcame them. Mariakaki bravely shares painful episodes from her own life as well as stories from the lives of the many inspiring people,—mentors, relatives, friends and clients—, she has met along the way and who, by bravely changing themselves, have helped her change her own self along the way, and vice versa.

You Deserve to Be Happy teaches us not only that happiness is our undisputed right but also that change is impossible without the help of other human beings. By changing ourselves we can help change each other’s lives too.