Thank you @netgalley and @hogarthbooks for the complimentary advance copy of Happiness Falls!
I loved Angie Kim’s debut, Miracle Creek and it was one on my favorite books of 2019 list. With a lot of rave reviews and hype, I went into happiness Falls with high (too high?) expectations. The narrative immediately grabbed my attention - the pace of events unfolding after the father’s disappearance was absolutely frenetic, with variable after variable in thrown in to keep me guessing as to his whereabouts. Yet it began to feel bogged down pretty quickly, and I ended up resentful-reading it.😆
Initially, I thought the uncovering of the victim’s ‘happiness quotient’ research/happiness as something scientifically quantifiable was interesting but ultimately, it ended up feeling like an overdone red herring. Way too much word count was dedicated to this topic when the other scientific discourse was more fascinating and pertinent: the ways in which we communicate, the fascinating advances in language technology for people with impaired motor function, and how we judge people differently based on means and capabilities of accessing language.
I also think the story would have flowed better with multiple points of view, or at least an entirely different character’s point of view. Mia’s thoughts were all over the place, tedious and frustratingly self centered. Sure she’s young and that’s par for the course, but it was difficult to understand why the author chose her voice alone to move the story forward.
Lastly, I am NOT down with ambiguous endings. That’s all I’ll say about that! I would absolutely read another of Angie Kim’s novels, this one just didn’t work for me.