Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

45 reviews

skbat's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death of parent, and Ableism

Moderate: Car accident, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Cancer

Minor: Suicide, War, Confinement, Bullying, Racism, Blood, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Rape, and Police brutality

kotletka_polina's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-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? It's complicated

4.25

It was not what I expected. This book leaned more towards literally fiction despite the premise being set as a thriller/mystery. The open ending is very anticlimactic giving that the resolution seemed so close.
But I liked this book. Even though it has too much yapping at times, I really sympathised with the characters, feeling what they were feeling at that moment: rage and infuriation at their fathers’s secrets, nervousness and suspicion with each new peace of information revealed. I even found the narrator relatable somehow.
Even though it’s not the vibe I expected to get I still pretty much enjoyed it. Read the entire book in a couple of sittings without getting tired of complicated vocabulary (English isn’t my first language). It brings awareness to numerous important subjects and highlights issues I hadn’t paid enough attention before. I liked this book more than I expected. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Ableism, Medical content, Grief, Racism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Rape and War

sparklefarm's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I love discovering new-to-me authors and loving them immediately. This was an excellent read - I was hooked and in suspense from the get-go. Philosophical, tense, and personal - not a mix I expected, but one I really enjoyed. The author's note was meaningful (although upon reflection made some of the philosophizing and reflection within the work a bit heavy-handed, although I don't know that I really minded). Highly recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Death and Death of parent

Minor: Cancer, Racism, Rape, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Ableism

lindsayerin's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Police brutality

Minor: Racism

oceanwriter's review against another edition

emotional informative mysterious reflective medium-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

3.75

I was super drawn to books about Asian American families last year and this fit the bill perfectly. It turned out to be even more than I’d expected featuring a non-verbal autistic character. I have twin cousins similar to Eugene, so it was like getting a closer glimpse into what a day might look like from their perspective. 

 

When Adam Parson doesn’t come home with his son, Eugene, his family desperately searches for answers. It seems as though only Eugene has the answer, but given he doesn’t speak, his mother, siblings, and the detective working on the case can’t hear his side of the story. Unfortunately, given Eugene’s history of outbursts along with some scattered bits of evidence, he is made a suspect. 

 

The story is narrated by Mia, Eugene’s older sister. She helps to decode her father’s journal which is the family’s best lead they have to finding out what happened. In their findings, several different scenarios are compiled. 

 

I was more interested in Eugene’s storyline than I was in the overall mystery, though it did have its intriguing moments. Though ultimately important to the plot, I grew bored whenever there were readings from Adam’s journal. Some parts of the story felt unnecessary while others felt unresolved, but for the most part, I had a good time reading. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Cancer, Racism, and Bullying

Minor: Rape and War

jaimc's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism

Moderate: Cursing, Pandemic/Epidemic, Cancer, Grief, Death of parent, and Terminal illness

Minor: Bullying, Racism, Car accident, Rape, Suicide, and War

ggartel's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Ableism

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Racism, Car accident, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Cancer, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Infidelity, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Ableism, Death of parent, Cursing, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

emma_sky's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad fast-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Xenophobia, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Racism

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Suicide attempt, War, Cancer, and Rape

_david_'s review

challenging emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

The book starts of with a cliché (a witness that cannot speak), but do not worry and stick with it, it's handled very well. I really appreciated the author's sensitive and thoughful portrayal of nonspeaking characters. It's clear that she researched and spoke to people who are nonspeaking themselves about it. This care is also evident in the author's notes and acknowledgments.

The main character shows some bad behavious: making quick assumptions, speaking around a nonspeaking character instead of to them, and just acting as a general teenager. However, the future main character, whose POV we're following, calls her past self out on it and voices her shame. In general I feel like Mia would've made more sense as a teenager than someone in college/uni.

The author's background in philosophy shines through, especially in the exploration of happiness. It's clearly written by someone with an academic background.

The ending left a positive lasting impression. I'm sure I will think back on it often during the rest of my life.

The reason that I'm giving the book 4 stars instead of 5 is because the writer POV often annoyed me with her perspective. I specifically refer to all the moments which said something along the lines of "but with the information I know now, why [odd thing] happened made sense" without any further explanation. It happened too much and sometimes for relatively minor occurrences. It disrupted the flow of the story and was hard to take serious after a while. A small point that I disliked but not enough to affect the score, that only Mia, Adam (the dad) and Eugene were well rounded characters. Hannah (the mother) and especially John were quite flat eventhough they were very important to the story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Racism, Violence, War, Death, Police brutality, Ableism, Bullying, Rape, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Abandonment, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Car accident, Xenophobia, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Colonisation, and Mental illness

Minor: Dementia, Classism, Toxic relationship, and Cancer