Review: Happiness Falls (by Angie Kim)

My Rating:  3 stars

I have such mixed feelings about this book.  On the one hand, I really liked the story and absolutely appreciated the way Angie Kim brought much-needed insight to a condition that's so misunderstood.  Not only did I learn a lot from the story, it also made me deeply reflect on my own preconceptions and biases and most importantly, it changed my perception on how I approach things that I may not understand.  On the other hand, I really really really did NOT like the way the entire story was executed. 

The story actually starts off fine — the first couple pages, the first chapter even, drew me in and I was invested.  I had read Angie Kim's debut Miracle Creek (which I loved), so I anticipated there would be some "science-y" stuff in this book as well (which I'm usually not keen on, but if the science stuff is incorporated well and it doesn't feel overwhelming, I'm fine with it) — seeing how perfectly Kim had integrated science into that book, I was expecting the same here as well. Unfortunately, this would not be the case, as it turns out this book was written very very differently from her previous one.  The science stuff in here wasn't just overwhelming, it was way over the top in my opinion, to the point that it bogged the story down. But that was a minor problem overall — the biggest problem I actually  had with this book was the narrative voice.  

The entire story is narrated from the first person (sometimes switching to second person) point of view of twenty-year-old Mia Parkson, who is mixed race (half Korean, half white), but she looks more Asian than her fraternal twin John Parkson, whom most people mistake for a white person (I say this because race does play a role in the story). They have a younger brother, Eugene, who has both autism and the genetic condition Angelman syndrome, so he is not able to speak.  Their mother Hannah is a linguistics professor and their father Adam is a stay-at-home dad who takes care of the household. The incident that sets the story in motion occurs pretty early on, when Eugene returns home by himself, bloody and disheveled, while his dad Adam, who had taken him for their usual morning walk to the park, didn't accompany him back.  Soon, the police are involved and an investigation is launched to figure out what happened to Adam. 

Mia narrates the story and pretty much gives us (the readers) a "play-by-play" of everything that happens, from the moment Eugene returns home and throughout the entire investigation. This normally wouldn't be a problem — except that, in this case, Mia is an INCREDIBLY annoying character.  The book's summary refers to Mia as "irreverent" and "over analytical" which are both true, but the problem I had is that Mia goes beyond that — she is also cynical, arrogant, self-absorbed, a bit narcissistic, and, like her father notes at one point, has a "sarcastic attitude and general disregard for others' feelings" (which Mia agrees is a perfect assessment of her but still can't help hating everyone who describes her as such).  For me, the most annoying part about having Mia narrate the story is that she kept "getting in the way" — in addition to repeatedly jumping to conclusions and making assumptions about EVERY SINGLE THING (even though she keeps telling herself that she's "learned her lesson" and won't do it again), much of the story consisted of Mia constantly justifying and re-justifying her behavior / thoughts / actions. Whenever anyone would say anything or anything would happen, it would be quickly followed by at least a paragraph (sometimes multiple paragraphs) of Mia's analyses and assumptions — to the point where it felt like the story would veer off into "Mia's justification tangents" every other page.  For me, this was not just annoying, but also extremely frustrating — after awhile, I actually found myself yelling at Mia to just shut the hell up and stop interrupting the story every 5 seconds to talk about herself.

I honestly wish this story had been told in third person rather than first person, as I felt it would've been much more impactful and powerful.  From reading the Author's Note, it sounded like one of the purposes for Kim writing this story in the first place was to call attention to our assumptions and biases as a society, especially toward people with special needs — while some of that did come through in the story (case in point: Eugene's struggles with communicating led me to read up on Angelman syndrome and the teaching methods described in the book), unfortunately, for me at least, the frustration with Mia's narration overshadowed majority of the story and made it hard for me to focus much on anything else.

Like I said earlier, I loved Miracle Creek, so I was really looking forward to reading this one (which makes me a little sad that this book didn't quite work out for me).  One thing I've figured out about my reading habits lately (this year especially) is that I'm very much a "character-driven" reader — meaning that the voice in which a story is told is more important to me than I realize and can have a huge impact on my reading experience.  I say this because I've read quite a few books this past year where the story was told from the first person perspective of an "unlikable to the point of annoying" character and each time, I ended up getting so frustrated with the character that it essentially turned me off to the rest of the story (even in the cases where the writing was brilliant and everything else about the story was awesome).  It makes me realize that, for me as a reader, these types of annoying characters are only tolerable if I'm able to read about them with a layer of remove — when I'm forced to listen to them go on and on (and on and on and on) about their own flaws (especially when the character is unapologetic about those flaws and there are little to no redeeming qualities), it negatively impacts my reading experience.  

With all that said, if I were to look past the narration issues, there was actually a lot to like about the story (which is one reason why I struggled so much with rating this).  I loved the character of Eugene and felt the mystery aspect was well done…also, there were some really important societal issues that were explored in here that were thought-provoking and necessary — I'm pretty sure if this had been told in a different narrative voice, I would've really taken to the story overall, as it's the type of story that's usually right up my alley.  Of course, this is just me — there are a lot of readers who loved this one, so it's probably best to check out those reviews as well before deciding whether to pick this one up.  

Received ARC from Hogarth via NetGalley.

Review: Miracle Creek (by Angie Kim)

My Rating: 4.5 stars

Wow, what a story!  This book surprised me in so many ways, which is something I didn’t expect going into it after reading the summary.  On the surface, this looked like a typical mystery / thriller but with a unique premise – a hyperbaric oxygen therapy procedure gone horribly wrong and subsequently a young single mother gets put on trial for murder – yet a few chapters in, it became apparent that there was nothing “typical” about this story.  In fact, I had a hard time categorizing this book, as it’s one of those stories that starts off with a crime committed – in this case, a fire that was set, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries – but as the facts about the case are debated in court and each character gets to tell their side of the story from their perspective, the narrative evolves into much more than just an exercise in determining guilt or innocence in order to solve a case.  Rather, the story becomes a deeper exploration of various issues and experiences that many of us deal with in real life:  the complexities of relationships, the obligations involved with marriage and parenthood, the bonds of family, morality and ethics as it pertains to how one deals with incurable medical conditions, etc. – throw into that mix a truly resonant immigrant story, one that gets to the heart of the Asian immigrant experience in terms of culture, acceptance, identity, and the effect this experience can have on those who live it every day.  There was a lot of depth to the story as well as to the characters, all of whom I felt that I could relate to and connect with in one way or another, despite coming from a completely different background and, with a few of the characters, not sharing any experiences in common. 

This was a book that I found very hard to put down, to the point that I very nearly finished it in one sitting except for the fact that I needed to sleep for a few hours in order for my brain to properly function so I reluctantly had to finish reading in 2 sittings instead.  It still amazes me that this is the author Angie Kim’s debut novel, as this was so well-written and the individual threads of the story were woven together so seamlessly, there’s no doubt in my mind about her talent as a writer.  I’m typically not a fan of books where courtroom dramas are front and center, as I tend to find them too drawn out and confusing, but this one was very well done, with a perfect balance of twists and turns as the trial went on with the cleverly placed backstories that kept me constantly second-guessing each character’s involvement leading up to the incident.  The ending was surprising and not anything at all like what I expected, yet made perfect sense with the way the story played out.

In interviews and articles, the author talks about her family’s own experience with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which she incorporated into the narrative alongside additional research that gave the story an altogether authentic feel.  At times, I felt like I was reading about a real-life court case involving real-life people — a criminal case written so convincingly, I had to remind myself time and again that this was a work of fiction.  The realistic nature of the story compelled me to immediately go online after I finished the book so I could find out more about the author and also get some additional background on what I had read.

This is a book you want to go into knowing as little as possible and just let the story take you where it leads.  With that in mind, I don’t want to say too much more other than give yourself sufficient time to read this one because once you pick it up, you most likely won’t want to put it down!

Received ARC from Sarah Crichton Books (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) via NetGalley