The Running Bibliophile

Happiness Falls  by Angie Kim is a story about a bi-racial Korean-American family whose patriarch goes missing.  Told from twenty year old Mia's perspective, she's not initially concerned when her younger brother Eugene comes home without their father.  As minutes and hours tick away, the entire family finally realizes is something most be horribly wrong for the father and husband not to be home yet. This novel was selected by my book club for our June 2024 discussion.  I hadn't heard of this book or author before, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I enjoy a good mystery and the synopsis intrigued me. "Meh" is my overall thought of Happiness Falls because I didn't particularly like the main character, Mia.  She seemed awfully self absorbed and unobservant, especially when it came to her younger brother, Eugene.   Eugene is non-speaking and was diagnosed by doctors to being autistic and having a rare disease called Angelman Disease.  T here is a...

Welcome Home, Caroline Kline by Courtney Preiss opens with Caroline Kline couch surfing in New York City due to her no longer having a job and her fiance breaking up with her. The cherry on top is when Caroline finds out her father is not doing well and has to go home to New Jersey to help out. She finds one thing she didn't expect . . . true love. I received an Advanced Readers Copy of Welcome Home, Caroline Kline from NetGalley for free in exchange for my honest review.  The synopsis of this book was intriguing, and I absolutely love baseball, so I couldn't wait to dig in to this story. Unfortunately, the story started off a bit slow and continued to be slow at points throughout the book. The slowness of the plot made it difficult to stay interested in the characters and their fate.  At one point, I didn't really care if I finished the story or not. With that being said, I'm glad I stuck with the book because the last 15% of Welcome Home, Caroline Kline started to ...