Happiness Falls

Author: Angie Kim

Genre: Mystery, Fiction

Pages: 400

Other books: Miracle Creek

Star Rating = 4.0 Very Good

Mia is very close with her family. She has a twin brother named John and a younger brother Eugene with Angelman syndrome. Eugene’s disorder affects the entire family in different ways.

Mia has struggled dealing with Eugene’s disability because he is nonverbal and the way he reacts to situations is hard to read. For example, when it was her birthday and Eugene destroyed her cake, she was angry and wanted Eugene to just be ‘normal’. Mia’s mom and dad also deal with their son’s disability differently. Their mom wants to find a solution to Eugene being nonverbal where her dad was much more relax on the idea of ‘finding a solution’.

One day Eugene comes home in a frantic and knocks Mia to the floor. Eugene was at the park with dad but there is no sign of dad. With Eugene unable to communicate, the rest of the family is uncertain if they should be alarmed. After hours and still no sign of dad, they knew something must of have gone wrong.

After contacting the police, sending search warrants and sending out a missing person report, the wait for answers gets draining. Mia and John take it upon themselves to find answers. Mia searches through dads laptop, files and notes and stumbles upon a project named ‘The Happiness Quotient’. As she recalls, dad use to make comments about happiness and his theories, she wonders if this has more to do with him gone missing.

Will the family get the answers they are looking for?

So many questions but so little information, this book is a page turner! This author did a fabulous job keeping her readers on their toes. This book starts with a band and allows the readers to gravitate towards finding answers just like the characters.

The characters are relatable to siblings and family life as well as a family with a disability. She highlights the learning curves of families that have a member with a disability. I also connected with ‘The Happiness Quotient’ project. The author places her theory around happiness and I loved reading through her research. It was that little nugget of information that was placed graceful enough to gather the information while still reading the story.

Overall, great book. This book was lovely written, you can relate to the characters and had enough mystery to keep reading!