Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

9 reviews

emma_sky's review

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 against another edition

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

katiecentabar's review against another edition

emotional funny informative inspiring medium-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

A powerful story of what it means to be human and to be (mis)understood. Mia is a know-it-all who is so annoyingly 20 years old it was at times painful to read because I saw too much of myself in her, but she was a great narrator. This book is going to stick with me for a while, thinking about how we communicate and what it means to be happy. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism

Moderate: Xenophobia

Minor: War and Rape

yeaeun's review

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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Content Warnings

Minor: Rape, Death of parent, Violence, Death, Ableism, Xenophobia, and Hate crime

boop123's review

it's a no for me I'm sorry. I came in here for some mystery and thriller and instead, what I got was a philosophy lesson. Not that there's anything bad with that, but I wanted more mystery and thriller. Not to mention, the main character was too annoying and arrogant even for me. There was a lot of rambling which I know is the point of the main character but I was still not into it

I gave it a chance though but I gave up until I reached just the half way point. If the book only started to pick up in the second half, I think I lost all energy to care about what's going to happen.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Xenophobia and Cancer

jialianyang's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense 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

5.0

I see why this book is a bestseller! The narration is at times cerebral and fully in a teen voice, but eventually the character and plot developments twist and turn so rapidly that you can't help but flip page after page. This is a story about family, loyalty, secrets, respect, ableism, the limits of our public safety system, language, philosophy and more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Ableism, Death, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Racism, Infidelity, War, Kidnapping, Xenophobia, Cancer, and Panic attacks/disorders

kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, Xenophobia, and Racism

killerpancake's review

challenging emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

This one hits so hard. I have to spoiler tag what I loved though because it's a bit spoilery. I would recommend going in knowing as little as possible. 

The author weaves the themes of language and communication so deftly in this book. Knowing how damaging it is to people who live without the ability to communicate and the tangable damage it does slices my heart into peaces.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia

Moderate: Death and Death of parent

Minor: Rape and War

annoyedhumanoid's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Ableism, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Cancer, Violence, Infidelity, Police brutality, Sexism, Suicide, Bullying, Blood, Hate crime, Murder, Cursing, Terminal illness, and Xenophobia

Minor: Sexual violence, Confinement, Alcohol, Sexual assault, Rape, Car accident, Deportation, and Gun violence