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A review by belinda_frisch
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
4.0
Angie Kim’s Miracle Creek is a compellingly believable courtroom drama dealing with the complicated issues of immigration and special needs parenting. The Yoos (Young, Pak, and Mary) came to the United States looking for a better way of life, having opened a controversial alternative medicine facility to treat everything from sterility to cerebral palsy. When a fire in their HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen therapy) chamber claims the lives of a special needs boy, Henry, and Kitt, another patient’s mother, the entire community of Miracle Creek is upended.
Mary is left scarred, having spent time in a coma. Pak is paralyzed. The family is financially and emotionally devastated, and the dead boy, Henry’s, mother stands charged with his murder. But did she do it?
There are protesters, patients, parents, and the HBOT center owner, Pak to consider, and as many motives as suspects. Had Pak wanted the insurance money? Or maybe his wife did, tired of working so hard to make ends meet? Or was this a rebellious act of his teenage daughter who needs to feel like she belongs? Was it the wife of one of the patients who found out about an inappropriate relationship? Did the protestors cause the fire in an act meant to scare the parents of special needs children away from “experimental therapies?” Did Elizabeth really want Henry dead? Hadn’t she been abusing him? Hurting him to stop his autistic behaviors? Or was she simply wrought with guilt over the emotional strain that drove her, regularly, past her breaking point? And was she really a “good” mother, so devoted to her son that he had been declared off the autism spectrum due to her tireless efforts?
Each new chapter poses another theory, which is great for the first third or so of the book, but I admit that by the time it ended I almost didn’t care who was responsible. There is a lot to love about this book, which is mostly compelling and well-written, but there are a few things that got to me over time.
Elizabeth’s self-deprecation felt genuine at first, but left me scratching my head by the conclusion. There is absolutely no sense of self-preservation at any point during her trial, which would have been a nice counter-balance. Maybe she caught someone’s eye and there could be a potential love interest or change of life for her? She’s rendered as more or less one note. I pretty much discounted her as the arsonist from the outset. I did, however, think that her role and feelings as the sole caregiver to a special needs child are perhaps the star of this book. That, and maybe the Yoos story of immigration, although I admit to never liking Mary whose arc felt “off.” The fact that her situation with a trusted family friend was all but swept under the carpet, didn’t sit right with me.
Overall, this is a unique story dealing with a lot of complex issues told painstakingly slowly and in a literary style that didn’t hold up for me after the incredible first third. I guess I became numb to Elizabeth’s banter, came to dislike the Yoos, and it’s hard to feel like justice is served when, at the end of the book, you decide there isn’t a single likable character, except maybe the lawyer. How’s that for irony?
*Thank you to NetGalley and the author for an advance reader copy (ARC).
Mary is left scarred, having spent time in a coma. Pak is paralyzed. The family is financially and emotionally devastated, and the dead boy, Henry’s, mother stands charged with his murder. But did she do it?
There are protesters, patients, parents, and the HBOT center owner, Pak to consider, and as many motives as suspects. Had Pak wanted the insurance money? Or maybe his wife did, tired of working so hard to make ends meet? Or was this a rebellious act of his teenage daughter who needs to feel like she belongs? Was it the wife of one of the patients who found out about an inappropriate relationship? Did the protestors cause the fire in an act meant to scare the parents of special needs children away from “experimental therapies?” Did Elizabeth really want Henry dead? Hadn’t she been abusing him? Hurting him to stop his autistic behaviors? Or was she simply wrought with guilt over the emotional strain that drove her, regularly, past her breaking point? And was she really a “good” mother, so devoted to her son that he had been declared off the autism spectrum due to her tireless efforts?
Each new chapter poses another theory, which is great for the first third or so of the book, but I admit that by the time it ended I almost didn’t care who was responsible. There is a lot to love about this book, which is mostly compelling and well-written, but there are a few things that got to me over time.
Elizabeth’s self-deprecation felt genuine at first, but left me scratching my head by the conclusion. There is absolutely no sense of self-preservation at any point during her trial, which would have been a nice counter-balance. Maybe she caught someone’s eye and there could be a potential love interest or change of life for her? She’s rendered as more or less one note. I pretty much discounted her as the arsonist from the outset. I did, however, think that her role and feelings as the sole caregiver to a special needs child are perhaps the star of this book. That, and maybe the Yoos story of immigration, although I admit to never liking Mary whose arc felt “off.” The fact that her situation with a trusted family friend was all but swept under the carpet, didn’t sit right with me.
Overall, this is a unique story dealing with a lot of complex issues told painstakingly slowly and in a literary style that didn’t hold up for me after the incredible first third. I guess I became numb to Elizabeth’s banter, came to dislike the Yoos, and it’s hard to feel like justice is served when, at the end of the book, you decide there isn’t a single likable character, except maybe the lawyer. How’s that for irony?
*Thank you to NetGalley and the author for an advance reader copy (ARC).