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Synopsis

We didn’t call the police right away. When Mia’s father doesn’t come home from a walk in the local nature reserve, she doesn’t think much of it. He must’ve turned off his phone. Or his battery died. Or he probably stopped for an errand—but doing what exactly? Soon more questions arise, and it becomes clear to Mia and her family that he is missing. Or is he?

Review

I recently read a review of Happiness Falls that said the book was “unputdownable.” The story sounded like a twisty mystery, filled with a great family story and hidden secrets. I thought to myself, “Challenge accepted!”

The story starts when stay-at-home dad, Adam, doesn’t come home after a walk with his 14-year-old son, Eugene. Eugene is autistic, nonverbal and has a rare genetic condition called Angelman syndrome. (According to the Mayo Clinic, “Angelman syndrome … causes delayed development, problems with speech and balance, intellectual disability, and, sometimes, seizures.”) Adam’s older children, John and Mia, are fraternal twins and are home from college during the summer of 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown. Their mother, Dr. Hannah Park, is a Korean-American academic who researches linguistics.

The story is narrated by Mia, and she describes how sometimes she wished Eugene would go away or how her family could be “typical.” Reading that actually made me smile, knowing that no family is “typical,” and part of growing up is accepting yourself and your family as they are. But Mia thinks that being biracial (Korean and white), with a stay-at-home dad, being a fraternal twin and having a brother with a disability makes her family “atypical.”

As the mystery progresses, Mia describes events from her family’s past from her perspective, and when new information is discovered, she sees them in a new light. Her family is not who they seem to be, and Mia struggles with these new clues. Would it have been better if her father started a new life without them, rather than being killed in the park?

The novel goes in different directions, given the parents’ research and Mia’s interests. Since Eugene is nonverbal, everyone assumes he doesn’t understand things. Even his mother speaks to him like he’s a baby. Dr. Park’s own work in linguistics and her slight immigrant accent brings language, understanding and learning into focus, too. What does intelligence mean and why do people relate it to being able to communicate?

The author did a lot of research on families and kids with disabilities, the types of therapy the child may need and how this affects family dynamics. I like how the author made complex topics easier for readers to understand. She also wrote the family in such a way that they felt like real people, especially given the reality of the pandemic and their having lived in Korea for some time. I loved that this book explored many things that go on in a family and created a mystery within a wholly original family story.

I absolutely recommend this engrossing novel!