Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

4 reviews

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

the more i think about this book, the less i like it. i think i like the premise and this was a book i couldn’t really put down. but the writing was definitely pretty clunky and the narrator was pretty irritating. there were a ton of aspects of the characters and plot that didn’t get flushed out. none of the characters felt well-rounded and almost all of them were incredibly unlikable.
also i hated the ending. i think it’s hard for authors to get away with an unresolved ending, and this one definitely did not get away with it. also i wasn’t willing to believe that they had no clue that Eugene could spell or have any intelligible thoughts at all. how do you spend all day and night with him without getting an inkling about it. at that point it just feels like blatant negligence and abuse. 
there were also so many parts of the plot that were convoluted and pretentious. idk, i did like a lot of this but there was also a lot that disappointed me too. also, i am BEGGING authors to stop putting covid in the background of their books when that is not apart of the main plot at all. 
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yeaeun's review against another edition

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hopeful informative mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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sariereads's review against another edition

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

4.5

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annoyedhumanoid's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • 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

4.0

i loved the narration. i understand why it isn't for everyone, but my brain works in the same way so i felt at home. i also appreciated how this book advocated much more strongly for the humanity of its characters with disabilities than Miracle Creek (Angie Kim's debut novel) did. and that it took place during covid times. my main issues were that, compared to Miracle Creek, the plot:
  1. wasn't as gripping. it started to drag three-fourths of the way through, and i got fed up with all the cheap foreshadowing of the form "looking back, i wish [x] hadn't happened".
  2. didn't feel as expertly-crafted. though i recognize that's kind of the point—
    not all mysteries, especially missing person cases, have neat solutions; that's life
    —it was still somewhat disappointing. i'm trying to
    learn the lesson Mia did and
    accept an open ending—
    i choose to believe that her and John's mind-meld recreating the accident was a display of fraternal jeong, just the tiniest bit of magical realism.
nonetheless, this has cemented Angie Kim as an author on my radar, and i'm looking forward to her next book.
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