Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

12 reviews

ariana3's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I wanted to like this book, but it took me a while to get into it. It didn't capture my attention right away, as I could tell this was sort of a whodunnit mystery but it was a slow-moving pace. Overall I really did like the ending! It's bittersweet and resolves itself entirely.
Plot summary:

The Yoo family moved feom Seoul, South Korea to the US for a better life for their daughter Mary. But Mary hated the US, felt alone and alienated from her peers and her parents. Her parents eventually open a HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen treatment) center to help treat all sorts of patients. In this case, the patients are centered around a doctor, Matt, whose wife is obsessed with having a child and claims he's infertile (he's the only adult being treated), Teresa's daughter with cerebral palsy, Kitt's son with autism, and Elizabeth's son, Henry, also with autism. A fire breaks out at the center, which also happens to be on the Yoo's property, and Kitt and Henry both die. Matt's hand becomes deformed, Mary is scarred, and Pak is paralyzed. A trial begins for who set the fire, and all eyes are on Elizabeth. Prosecutors say she intended to kill Henry because she couldn't deal with life as a mother to a child with autism. It was hard and robbed her of herself. The evidence is seemingly staggering against her. The story of the characters plays out, and turns out she's totally innocent. However, she becomes convinced throughout the trial process that she's a terrible mother and she decides to end it all by committing suicide. She drives her lawyer's car off a cliff. Now the real story comes down to Matt. His marriage wasn't great, and he started spending time with Mary who was 16 at the time. On her 17th birthday, he forces himself on her - a misunderstanding/accident on his part, but definitely assault....his wife thinks Mary is basically stalking Matt, so she confronts her and says she's a whore and to leave Matt alone. In a fit of rage, Mary sets the fire by the barn to hopefully make it so that their family can leave this terrible place and go back to Seoul. Her dad had put cigarettes and matches near the oxygen tank to frame some protestors but he put it out just to make it appear to be a stopped fire. She doesn't know this, doesn't know that people were inside, and it's too late when she finds out. The bittersweet part is that her mother convinces her to confess. To help clear her conscious, deal with the consequences of her actions, rather than let it slide and place blame elsewhere just so she can avoid jail time. In the end, the money from Elizabeth's will goes to fund a daycare/camp for special needs and autism kids. So it's a terribly tragic and sad story, but has a somewhat slightly feel-good ending.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Mental illness, Suicide, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Terminal illness, Child death, Grief, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Sexual content, and Child abuse

Minor: Body horror, Bullying, Infertility, Alcohol, Car accident, and Infidelity

omgmkg's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I’m not sure how to give this book a star rating. I found it insufferable at first because it was just so obvious that each perspective was obfuscating a lot. The inclusions of little details thrown in like “…before cigarettes and Matt” that were largely irrelevant to the current topic and I guess designed to build suspense just really didn’t work for me. It was super weird to have them especially since they were not in first person. The court room procedural was boring and unnecessarily detailed for me, hard to get through… until it wasn’t. At some point, I switched to the audiobook, which made things easier right away. And then the story itself got me. By the end of this book, I really liked it. I liked the dilemmas each character faces, I liked the deep complexity and conflict. 
It was also a compelling exploration of motherhood (but almost all of it is super dark, at least at first…)

the book really started to work for me when Young began to investigate and put the pieces of the puzzle together herself. Then, any obfuscation was by others for a REASON (they didn’t want her to find out the truth) rather than casually just not mentioning things or making them purposefully mysterious just for the reader. Her third person but limited perspective also worked for me here. And the book fully gelled into something pretty fantastic once the whole family knew the truth and disagreed about what to do next. That was really great writing and a super compelling challenge. It is where the heart of the book truly lies. I’m not sure how the author could have gotten there without at least some of the parts that didn’t work for me, but I wish there had been less purposeful misdirection and more focus on Young and her family.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Infertility, Child abuse, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Suicide

Moderate: Xenophobia, Gaslighting, Excrement, Medical trauma, Sexism, Medical content, and Alcohol

moniipeters's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Xenophobia, Blood, Body horror, Car accident, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Abandonment, Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Sexism, Violence, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness

bumblebean's review against another edition

emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

This court room thriller would have been good if it wasn’t for the rampant unchecked ableism (particularly anti-autism rhetoric) throughout. It’s concerning that none of the reviews I read beforehand mentioned the glorification and promise that the  unproven and disgustingly harmful “treatments” some of the characters put their children through to “cure” them of their autism. There are only a few characters that are against these beliefs, but they’re treated as villains. I will never recommend this to anyone. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Gaslighting, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, and Child abuse

lpdx's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child abuse, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, Sexual assault, Child death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide, Chronic illness, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gore, and Rape

Minor: Excrement and Infertility

weird_but_fucking_beautiful's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This isn’t an easy book to try and review. In fact, it is a downright ugly book to try and review. There are no happy go lucky characters here. No happy endings. This story is about the unforgiving daily hardships a parent faces as the single care giver of a child with special needs. This story is about the lies we tell ourselves and others to fit a narrative that leads to the most suitable outcome. How far would you go to protect someone you loved? How much of something beneficial is too much?  These are some of the tough questions author Angie Kim poses as she skillfully balances the memories of the moralistically grey characters, barring one, regarding the event in question with scenes from the ongoing trial. The book relies heavily on the theory of The Butterfly Effect in which “the smallest of changes in one surrounding could leave drastic ripple effects at some point in the future”. It is a heavy, thought provoking story that does not cut corners in any of its topic debates including what is exactly the fine line between nurturing a child vs abusing a child. 

A potential 5 star read, I knocked a 1/2 star off due to a slight drag in the middle. 

 

 

 

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, and Suicide

Moderate: Car accident, Death of parent, Infertility, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders and Stalking

aprilnotmay's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Bullying, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, Racism, Infertility, Emotional abuse, Child death, Ableism, Gaslighting, Child abuse, and Medical content

ashleysbookthoughts's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’m trying very hard to write a review of this book and not a rant about ableism and misinformation about autism. If you’re interested in that, please DM me, because this book brought up THOUGHTS. This book will be a very difficult read if you have or love someone who has autism. Angie Kim makes it clear that the opinions presented belong to her characters and aren’t her own, but she doesn’t pull punches. So, even though it’s a huge part of this book, I’m not going to talk about autism here. 

Instead, I’ll talk about the excellent pacing, clever plotting, twists and turns, and remarkably complex characters who I simultaneously loved and hated. Miracle Creek is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, an immigrant story, and an attack on the idea of the “Good Mother.” But most of all, it’s a story of consequences. Of how decisions and actions that seem small and inconsequential can cause irreparable damage. 

This book made me angry, tense, scared, sympathetic, and devastated. I don’t know that I loved it, but it kept me up at night and when I wasn’t actively reading it, I thought about it constantly. Thats pretty high praise. 

CW: ableism, murder, fire, fire death, suicide, chronic illness, sexual assault, assault of a minor, child abuse, racism, child death

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Gaslighting, Death, Sexual assault, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Murder, Racism, Suicide, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Medical content, Stalking, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Excrement, and Infertility

Minor: Cancer

annoyedhumanoid's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i'm impressed
hot take, i'm not that big a fan of Shakespeare because so many of his plots (at least, his tragedies) are like, if any one thing in this series of unfortunate events had gone differently then we wouldn't be in these tragic circumstances, except the series of unfortunate events is ridiculous and arbitrary. best example: in Hamlet (spoilers), when Hamlet stabs and kills Polonius, who was eavesdropping behind a curtain, because Hamlet thought he heard a rat. that's just undeniably stupid for a major plot point. Miracle Creek has the same concept—if anything had gone differently we could have avoided tragedy—but pulls it off expertly. Shakespeare could never??
could this be considered southern gothic? it's set in Virginia, nearly everyone is a grotesque character, and there's some truly disturbing content, plus themes of racism, sexism, and poverty.
this review has been completely shaped by my English class experience
cover design review: ★★★★½. love the colors, the scenery, and the burn holes, but it starts to feel crowded with the addition of glitter and stars. not a big fan of the typeface, makes me think of Papyrus 😬

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, Ableism, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Chronic illness, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Child abuse, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, and Rape

Moderate: Abandonment, Cursing, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Confinement, Excrement, Alcohol, Blood, Car accident, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Cancer, Forced institutionalization, Bullying, Stalking, and Vomit

savvyrosereads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

First read in 2019; review based on my April ’22 reread!

Rating: 4/5 stars (boosted 0.5 stars from my original rating)

Told through the frame of a murder trial, Miracle Creek is a literary courtroom mystery centered on the fallout from an explosion and fire at “Miracle Submarine,” a hyperbaric oxygen treatment center owned by a Korean immigrant family and primarily catering to children with special needs. The mother of one of the patients stands accused of murdering her son…but everyone has secrets, and the trial just may reveal them all.

I generally shy away from courtroom thrillers because, frankly, they’re rarely well-done or realistic, and, as a lawyer, they can be downright painful to read. Fortunately, Miracle Creek is written by a former trial attorney, and the courtroom scenes are realistic, riveting, and the absolute best I’ve come across in a book to date. This second read managed to impress me even more, because the many heartbreaking but beautiful moments of the narrative really shone through on a reread, including insights into the immigrant experience, parenthood, and surviving trauma.

I want to flag that this is by no means an easy read, and you should absolutely check content warnings before diving in. But it is memorable and beautifully written, and I’m so glad I read it twice.

Recommended to anyone, but especially if you like: courtroom dramas; first generation immigrant stories; literary thrillers.

CW: Ableism; child abuse; child death; murder; fire/fire injury; sexual assault, suicide.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Grief, Infertility, Infidelity, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Ableism, and Adult/minor relationship