58. Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

listened on Libby

387 pgs.

2023
Adult mystery
Finished 6/23/24
Goodreads rating: 3.75
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Washington DC outskirts

My comments: Mia, from a Korean American family has a 20-year-old twin brother and a 13-year old autistic brother who cannot speak or communicate in any way.  The book starts with the stay-at-home father/caregiver taking Eugene on his daily walk to the park and never returning.  The entire book is based on trying to figure out what happened to the dad.  Did he leave?  Did he die?  If he did, where is he?  Eugene knows, but he can't communicate it.  Mia, the not-really likeable protagonist did start to grow on me a bit well into the book.  I loved the first half of the book, but the second half became more and more philosophical, which I really do dislike (in a book or in real life conversation, lol).  I probably would have rated this a 5 at first, but it went down by the time I finished.  I DID have a lot to think about, and I can still remember it months later, so that's a truly positive thing!

Goodreads synopsis:  When a father goes missing, his family's desperate search leads them to question everything they know about him and one another--both a riveting page-turner and a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis from the award-winning author of Miracle Creek.

"We didn't call the police right away." Those are the first words of this extraordinary novel about a biracial Korean-American family in Virginia whose lives are upended when their beloved father and husband goes missing.

Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, has an explanation for everything--which is why she isn't initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don't return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia's brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak.

What follows is both a ticking-clock investigation into the whereabouts of a father and an emotionally rich portrait of a family whose most personal secrets just may be at the heart of his disappearance. Full of shocking twists and fascinating questions of love, language, race, and human connection, Happiness Falls is a mystery, a family drama, and a novel of profound philosophical inquiry. With all the powerful storytelling she brought to her award-winning debut Miracle Creek, Angie Kim turns the missing person story into something wholly original, creating an indelible tale of a family who must go to remarkable lengths to truly understand one another.