dani ༊'s Reviews > Happiness Falls

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 4/5 stars

read if you like:
♡ footnotes & charts dotted throughout
♡ family drama
♡ biracial rep (korean-american)
♡ disability rep (autism & angelman syndrome)

➸ if you had told me happiness falls was a work of non-fiction i would have readily believed you. a sublimely introspective and highly academic appropriation of the mystery thriller genre, angie kim does more than just set your blood pumping with a missing person story. here, kim’s inquiries into a meld of thought-provoking subjects ripple through the carefully plotted mystery.

➸ when acerbic and analytically-minded mia notices that her father, adam parson, has failed to return with her younger brother eugene from their walk, mia barely bats an eye and assumes there’s some explanation for it. for eugene is non-verbal with a dual diagnosis of autism and a rare genetic disorder, angelman syndrome, so there’s no one to ring the alarm bells. even if he does seem more harried than usual and there are crescents of blood beneath his fingernails... when it becomes apparent that something terribly wrong has taken place - the clock has already begun ticking. with eugene the only witness and unable to provide any answers, suspicion may fall on him so it’s up to mia and the rest of her biracial korean-american family to protect him and find their missing father. as they comb through the secrets adam left in his wake, they might even find a way to finally communicate with eugene.

➸ to engage with this novel solely as a mystery thriller is to qualify its nuance, for it is flush with concerns pertaining to philosophy (adam’s studies looking into the “happiness quotient”), neurodiversity, race and linguistics - even going so far as to arch a brow in challenge to the metrics we use to gauge intelligence. bear in mind that in spite of these deeply curious examinations (supplemented by a surfeit of mia’s footnotes), the more gut-knotting depiction of family dynamics effortlessly saves the narrative from being too cerebral and flat in its delivery. to really foster this emotional impact, kim has the charmingly loquatious mia treat the novel as if it were a confessional of sorts for her, therefore making it all the more impossible not to be drawn to her and her tight-knit family whose support of eugene is done with such grace that it inspired the utmost admiration in me. and if a few tears were shed along the way i doubt anyone could hold me liable for them after reading this.

➸ incidentally, the mystery itself, whilst propulsive and a constant source of intrigue, at times looks a little anaemic in comparison. that’s not to say that there is any absence of thrill, for any family drama is inherently the literary equivalent of raking claws along a blackboard. after all, there is little else as discordant as suspecting that those who share your own blood may be capable of doing you mortal harm. in a high-stakes environment, eugene’s linguistic alienation from others is brought to the fore, urging us to recalibrate how we accomodate others in his shoes.

➸ conclusion :
diving beneath the shallower waters of a classic missing person case, happiness falls ambitiously reaches out to sift through the sea-floor and unearth what’s beneath in these new depths - to undeniable success.

thank you netgalley for the arc !