Happiness Falls

Locations
Call Number: Adult Book / Fiction / Thriller / Legal / Kim, Angie, Fiction / Kim, Angie
On Shelf At: Traverwood Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Thriller / Legal / Kim, Angie	4-week checkout	In transit
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Thriller / Legal / Kim, Angie	4-week checkout	Due 05-17-2025
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Thriller / Legal / Kim, Angie	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Thriller / Legal / Kim, Angie	4-week checkout	Due 05-25-2025
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Kim, Angie	4-week checkout	Due 05-13-2025
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Kim, Angie	4-week checkout	Due 05-22-2025
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Thriller / Legal / Kim, Angie	4-week checkout	Due 05-11-2025
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Thriller / Legal / Kim, Angie	4-week checkout	Due 05-27-2025
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Thriller / Legal / Kim, Angie	4-week checkout	Due 05-25-2025
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Thriller / Legal / Kim, Angie	4-week checkout	Due 05-02-2025

"We didn't call the police right away. When Mia's father doesn't come home from a walk in the local nature reserve, she doesn't think much of it. He must've turned off his phone. Or his battery died. Or he probably stopped for an errand-but doing what exactly? Soon more questions arise and it becomes clear to Mia and her family that he is missing. Or is he?"-- Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

It's a long slog submitted by hiker15 on January 23, 2024, 5:25pm Plot may be OK but hoo boy is this book a slog. Very minimal dialogue, just sort of stream of consciousness from the 19 year old narrator telling the story. And the ending was not very satisfying.

I loved this submitted by brooksza on June 15, 2024, 9:38am Total page-turner. I finished it in just a few days, I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. Pulls in so many modern themes about communication and expectations. There were some plot elements that didn't land for me but overall very good read. I appreciate that covid-era period piece. This would make a good movie or tv show too.

good submitted by harringtonm on June 23, 2024, 5:15pm gave similar vibes to everything i never told you by celeste ng!

Started out well but didn’t hold up submitted by 21621031390949 on July 16, 2024, 10:50pm Well, I started out really liking this book and finding it to be a bit of a page-turner. The characters are interesting, though maybe a little caricatured, and the plot engaged me. I mostly liked the narrator’s voice, though in spots she bogged down some.

What follows might count as a spoiler for some, so be forewarned….

I was interested in the whole Angelman Syndrome, but didn’t quite understand it as described by the author. So I asked a friend who works with, and teaches about treatment with, severely impaired people with Autism as well as AS, and he filled me in. Apparently the treatments described in the book are fairly controversial, and my friend feels a lot of loving parents and families are being taken for a ride and given false hope by questionable practitioners. Yes, some non-speakers are cognitively “typical” and are frustrated by being treated as cognitively impaired. Stories of teaching them to be able to express themselves (as in this book) are uplifting and popular. But apparently - according to this professional - far more of the non-verbal people with severe impairments are not normal-intelligence-waiting-to-get-out.

I can’t resolve this dispute about treatments, but I do know that I didn’t enjoy the end of the book, the last 25 pages of which I read after our conversation. I found it hard to believe that Eugene could make the jumps in communication that he did in the book, or that his family could have so misjudged him. I found Mia, the narrator, got very preachy in the last pages and really lost me. I’m not sure how I would have felt about the end if I hadn’t talked with my friend, but I do think I would have been disappointed with the pacing and preachiness.

So I give this book just 3 stars and only a moderate recommendation.

Pretty good? submitted by nelsonr on August 4, 2024, 8:36pm I loved the characters! But I found the second half of the book to be challenging.