I finished it, but only because quitting felt like losing.
That probably tells you everything you need to know about my experience with Happiness Falls.
Let me start by saying this: This is probably a four- or five-star book for the right reader. I am not that reader.
From the very first chapter, I knew I was in for a challenging read. Mia, our narrator, explains that she gets sidetracked easily and uses footnotes to share her extra thoughts. That meant I either had to flip back and forth constantly or try to remember what was in the footnotes until the end of each chapter. I tried both methods. Eventually, I gave up and started ignoring them altogether. Not exactly a great start.
The story centers around a family whose father goes missing after spending time in the park with Eugene, the youngest sibling. Eugene has special needs, Mia and John are twins, and the family dynamics between the three siblings, along with their parents, were actually one of the strongest parts of the book. I genuinely cared about this family. I wanted to know what happened to their father. I just didn’t enjoy the long philosophical detours along the way.
And there were a lot of philosophical detours.
I have a math brain. I like definitive answers. Soft sciences don’t satisfy me, and the philosophical discussions about happiness didn’t interest me At All. The idea of calculating a “happiness quotient,” which Mia’s father was working on, felt abstract and theoretical in a way that just didn’t click with me. I found myself skimming those sections, not because they weren’t thoughtfully written, but because they simply weren’t what I enjoy reading.
The pacing suffered because of this. I cared about the central mystery, but I often felt like I had to slog through pages of philosophical discussion to get back to the story. At one point, I realized I was skipping ahead just to find out what happened to Mia’s father, which is never a great sign.
To be clear, Mia herself didn’t bother me. She’s a 20-year-old trying to figure things out, and her perspective felt realistic. The family dynamics were compelling, and I appreciated how much the story focused on relationships and communication, especially surrounding Eugene. But overall, this was a struggle for me.
I finished the book, but only because quitting felt like losing. And while I can absolutely see why some readers would love the thoughtful, philosophical nature of this story, I personally found it slow and difficult to stay engaged. It's a thoughtful, well-written book, just not my kind of book.
