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erikanorris's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Child abuse and Child death
Moderate: Suicide
outernetbex's review against another edition
- 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
3.75
Graphic: Child death and Rape
Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, and Vomit
camz's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Ableism, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
aprilnotmay's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Sexual assault and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Racism, Suicide, Medical content, and Gaslighting
jesscoast's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
With elements of horror and family drama woven through the intricate threads of Miracle Creek, it goes further than any courtroom thriller could be expected to do. The character’s back stories, family dynamics, motives and claims all come into question and all play out over an emotional four day trial. The book is not for the faint of heart and I did have trouble coming back to it in the beginning, but I felt a commitment to the characters to see it through to the end. Each new peice of information is a clue and the mystery begins to reveal itself along the many intentions, misguided deeds, web of lies, cover ups, and guilty consciousnesses. Each new discovery makes the reader reposition their theories and redirects the jury, making everyone a suspect and truly playing into the spirit of mystery. The execution of this story, though heartbreaking and gory, is brilliantly designed. The focus on pain and suffering, the tragedy and fall out, deaths and injuries caused by the explosion were all focused on the impact on victims and survivors, parents losing children or children losing patents. The seemingly random decisions and actions that compounded down a path to a deadly accident and the chaos and devastation that followed. This book curable certainly left an impact on me, I’ll be thinking about it for a long time to come. Its heaviness will sit with me, as will the strength of Theresa, Young, and many of the women in difficulty situations, the sacrifice of immigrant parents, and the struggles of mothers of disabled children in this story.
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Suicide, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Death of parent
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship
katrinarose's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The author does an incredible job making fully developed characters. Reading her writing makes me feel justified for every complaint I’ve made for other books not having good character development, because THIS is what good character development looks like (and I’m not just picky, although maybe I am that too.) Kim definitely puts you on an emotional rollercoaster - you begin hating a character from another character’s viewpoint but then you get humbled once you get the other character’s perspective, backstory, emotions, and motivations. It truly is a study of “there’s two sides to every story”, and I think it gives the reader a lot to think about, not just in the book, but how we interact with the stories told every day by people we know and especially online.
The storyline itself was very engaging; it was very hard to put the book down. I really enjoyed all the POVs, for the reasons listed above but also for how it propelled the story along. I’m in awe of how she kept the mystery going even when we did get the the perspectives of the one(s) who committed the crime. I like a court procedural style. The back and forth was very satisfying to me, and reminded me a little of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. I think it was believable but I think that’s because I found the characters so believable, and I understand a few criticisms of the crime plot’s unbelievability. However I don’t think it was enough to ruin or even affect my reading experience.
I’m in love with Kim’s writing style too. She gives her characters such grace while not shying away from the dark things they do too. In my opinion she is a master of similes, never before have I seen them used so often with such strong effect.
I feel like I could talk about this book forever but I’ll leave it at that. I can’t think of anyone I wouldn’t recommend this book to, except maybe minors due to some tough subjects. It’s a new favorite.
Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual assault, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual content, Suicide, and Xenophobia
apiora215's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
brookey8888's review against another edition
- 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
2.75
Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Suicide, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
lessthelonely's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.0
This book took a lot of time to read, and that isn’t to say it was hard to read - at least, not in the sense that I had to force myself to keep reading. Every single time I grabbed this book? I was having a good time. A very entertaining time, in fact. But it’s been hard to find time to read. Or write. Or do anything that isn’t college related.
But I did finish this book, even if I went on Google because curiosity got the best of me and I just wanted to know who the real culprit was - and I’m kind of glad I did this, because the final pages of the book were still just as engrossing even with the huge reveal spoiled. It was still filled with tension and everything I expect from a thriller mystery.
Anyways, Miracle Creek is a book that has been lauded as one of the greatest books of 2019, and it’s been on my radar for quite some time, like a lot of other books. Believe me, if I was a person that reads more than one book at once, I definitely would, but because I’m not, it’s usually really hard to getting around to reading books that I am definitely interested in. But I’m very driven by moods when reading: sometimes I want romance. Sometimes I want something enthralling and twisty to try and figure out all the big reveals before they happen. Sometimes I want smut, pure and simple.
But the truth is, this book delivered on so many fronts and the fact is that it didn’t have to to be as enjoyable as it was... but, somehow, the author did it. You can tell this is a book that was written from experience and not something that was very heavily researched. Heavily researched books tend to ebb a little bit on that I learned this very cool thing and I’m going to explain it with a lot of wonder attached to it. Angie Kim appears to know a lot about most of the things that this book deals with: autism, HBOT, moving to another country. At least, I know she knows a lot about the first two.
What we end up with is a book that you truly can’t put down once it gets down to the wire. I’m going to admit it took me a bit to get into it. And then I read the Goodreads reply by the author herself saying that people tell her it takes a little bit to get into the story. In my case, that was absolutely true. All I needed was for the lawyers to start talking to the judge.
This book has graphic descriptions of incidents that can easily be found triggering, but what triggered me a lot was a lot of perspectives this book manages to get to the core of: on autism, ironically, you get a spectrum of all the possible perspectives of it - positive, negative, mixed? It’s all here. And they always make sense, even when they leave you mad.
At the same time, this book alternates between court scenes (it is labeled as a courtroom drama) and I would say these are the highlight of the book: it’s not that the lawyers are the best characters, but their dialogue is the most interesting. You will be surprised with how easily you can agree with both the accusation and the defense attorneys's points. But then, you have some slower moments with each of the 6 POVs this book has in it. This was the part that was difficult to get into, because it starts slow, but after the first testifying scene? It picks up, and with a lot of moving parts.
It’s a tight, extremely well-written mess, coupled with a lot of detailed and nuanced characterization. And as twists start hitting, each turn starts taking a toll on you, leaving a noticeable mark. There’s a reason why I went on Google to get spoiled: I couldn’t wait to get to the truth, and I knew I wouldn’t have time to read for some days.
Pick this one up. I will definitely get it physically when I can.
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Child death
Minor: Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
nykolereads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Suicide and Grief