Book Review | Book Chatter

Happiness Falls
By Angie Kim
Hogarth, 9780593448205, August 2023, 400 pp.

The Short of It:

Unfortunately, this one didn’t pull me in.

The Rest of It:

It started off very strong. A close-knit family with a special needs son. A brother, a sister and mom and dad. All, trying hard to find some way to communicate with fourteen year old Eugene after he returns home in a panicked state without his father.

What happened? Calls are immediately made but go unanswered. What about their possessions? Eugene is completely unable to provide an explanation.

The family immediately contacts the police. Was there an accident? After some preliminary search some items are found but in water and damaged. How did it get to the bottom of a stream? What about the notebook they found with the words Happiness Quotient? What was dad working on?

The author does a good job of presenting enough information to keep it interesting. But the communication research that takes place in preparation to communicate with Eugene pulled me out of the story.

There are cause and effect charts, and just a lot of small findings that lead up to the surprising conclusion. I felt that the story lost its way mid-point. The family’s frustration and their inability to really get along make it a tense reading experience.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Hike

The Hike
By Lucy Clarke
G.P. Putnam’s Sons,9780593422670, August 2023

The Short of It:

They wanted adventure. They got it.

The Rest of It:

Liz is burned out. Her marriage isn’t what she imagined, and work? More of the same. So she plans a trip to the mountains of Norway with her three best friends. As glamorous as it sounds, it’s a strenuous hike that not all have prepared for. The physical demands leave them exhausted and then when they realize that they aren’t the only ones on the mountain, and that someone has quite a bit to hide, things suddenly take a turn. Their little adventure turns into a game of cat and mouse.

Clarke has become one of those authors that I automatically read. Her last book One of the Girls was a zippy read and the pages just turned themselves. Same here. There was just enough time on the mountain to build up the tension, just enough background story to get a feel for each character, and the story wraps up quickly. I’ve been reading these types of quick reads lately and it’s working for me.

Have you read Clarke yet? I highly recommend her.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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