Challenging novels explore woods, death and disappearances

Filled with philosophical ponderings about happiness and a deep dive into the demands of parenting and being a sibling to a neurodivergent person, “Happiness Falls” is a book you absorb slowly.

It’s the summer of 2020, during the COVID pandemic, when 14-year-old Eugene returns home, bloody and disheveled and without his father. Eugene has both autism and Angelman syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that makes him nonverbal and gives him a deceptively happy demeanor.

Mia, his 20-year-old sister and the story’s narrator, fails to immediately react, but it isn’t long before the police are involved, and an investigation is launched. During the weeks following Adam Parson’s disappearance, his family tries to decode what Eugene might know while also protecting him from the police.

Along the way, Kim explores society’s views about people regarding their intelligence and brings insights into conditions that are often misunderstood. Revelations make Mia take stock of her life and how she relates to Eugene as both a sibling and a human being. It also made me reflect on my own preconceptions.

This was a lengthy book, nearly 400 pages, and the pace was on the slow side, but I was mostly content to spend time in Mia’s quirky, entertaining and sarcastic mind. Some readers may find Mia’s relentless analyzing and the rambling footnotes taxing.

At a book club brunch with gooey French toast casserole, among other treats, we noted that Kim put a great deal of time into the meticulous research on the science, the therapy, and the disability portrayed in this book. Some readers found the book was dragged down at times by the heavy science and philosophy parts. (I may have skimmed some of the chapters on the Happiness Quotient.) One reader liked how the first two-thirds of the book went but was disappointed by the ending.

All of us were intrigued enough to consider Kim’s debut novel, “Miracle Creek,” which also has an autistic character at the center of the plot. Another elevated mystery, this one revolves around a courtroom drama and who was responsible after a medical treatment device known as the “miracle submarine” explodes and kills two people. This original and riveting novel was less heavy on science and perfectly paced. I liked it even better than “Happiness Falls.”

When recommending this novel to friends, it’s hard to categorize. Nature writing? Supernatural thriller? Crime drama? Historical fiction? “North Woods” defies genres and style.

Letters, poems, song lyrics, diary entries, a true-crime detective story — one section of the novel is devoted to a cavorting lusty beetle. Under the wrong author, this may have made for a chaotic read. But Mason beautifully constructed this highly inventive tale, which covers three centuries of human and natural history on a particular wooded site in New England, paying tribute to the perseverance of nature.

The novel begins with two young lovers looking to escape judgment in their Puritan village. They find just the spot in the woods of western Massachusetts. And so, the tale of that land and the home that occupies it begins. Chapter by chapter, Mason introduces us to the inhabitants of that house, how those people live life, and how the land changes around them.

One member said this novel was “constantly surprising in terms of you never knew if the next chapter was going to be gothic, botanical, historic or biological.” She enjoyed the “shysters and bad guys” getting their comeuppance for the most part and the thread of apples that Mason wove throughout the novel.

As emphasized in this book, death is not a subject most people want to discuss, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to read an entire book about someone who worked as a death doula, guiding her clients through the last days of her lives. But I found this novel somewhat uplifting, more a reminder to celebrate your life and enjoy every minute.

Starting at a young age, when she witnesses her kindergarten teacher die, Clover has always felt a stronger connection to the dying than she does to the living. Not long after the death of her teacher, her parents are killed in an accident, and she moves to live with her grandfather in New York. In college, she travels the world to study how different cultures deal with death.

On one of those trips, her grandfather dies — alone. Clover returns home filled with guilt and for more than a decade keeps herself closed up. Her social life is nonexistent, and her only friend is her elderly neighbor, Leo. Her world begins to open up after she is hired to take care of a dying 91-year-old woman and a new, uninhibited neighbor moves into the apartment downstairs.

Book club members liked how the author shed light on aging, loneliness and end-of-life comfort. They also liked how Clover recorded her experiences in three notebooks — “Regrets,” “Advice” and “Confessions” — and tried to incorporate them into her own life. But Clover isn’t easy to like. One member found her petulant attitude so annoying that she almost didn’t finish the book. Her peeping tendency makes her somewhat off-putting, and though she was sweet and open with her clients, she was immature and introverted with other people, that member said.

Our book club met the day after St. Patrick’s Day, and a book with the name Clover in the title called out for delicious and beautifully decorated shamrock cookies along with a French toast casserole. (Yes, I had it twice this month, and I’m not complaining.) French toast was Clover’s favorite breakfast treat.

I groaned a little when I saw this novel was set during World War II, but it is secondary to the plot for at least the first part of the novel.

Rosie is only 16 years old when her life is upended after a car accident kills her parents and younger brother. The couple who owns the California vineyard where her parents work — Celine (heartless) and Truman (spineless) — are appointed guardians. Celine installs Rosie as the maid, saying it will give her life skills.

Rosie has a secret ability — she sees colors with words and music — and her mother has always encouraged her to keep it secret. In a weak moment, the lonely and grief-struck Rosie reveals this secret. Coincidentally, she also becomes pregnant. Celine sends Rosie to what Rosie thinks is an unwed mother’s home, but Rosie quickly learns it’s a psychiatric hospital, and they know about her synesthesia.

The second part of the book follows Helen, the sister of Truman who formed a connection with Rosie when she was a young girl. Helen has worked in Europe as a nanny for many years and is employed by a family in Vienna during World War II.

Though I was more invested in Rosie’s story, Helen’s part of the novel did shed light on eugenics and what was happening under Hitler. Appallingly, as we learn through Rosie’s story, similar things were happening in the U.S.

This book club enjoys historical fiction, and they found the inside look at the atrocities Nazis did to disabled children and the eerie connection to what was done in the U.S. illuminating.

In the novel, Rosie learned to cook quiche from a French chef, and the book club host served delicious mini-quiches and an impressive homemade Swiss roll (in reference to a character’s escape to Switzerland).

“Saint X” may initially seem like a typical thriller — a young, beautiful white girl ends up dead while on vacation with her parents at a high-end resort on the fictional island Saint X. For many people, the summary will bring to mind Natalee Holloway, who disappeared in Aruba while on vacation in 2005.

But “Saint X” is less of a whodunnit and more of a dive into the uncomfortable truths of class, race, privilege and the true-crime culture. In the end, when most of the details are revealed, how 18-year-old Alison actually died is beside the point.

Schaitkin opens the novel with a third-person objective point of view, but the bulk of the story is told in first person by Claire aka Emily — Alison’s younger sister. Interspersed throughout the novel are brief chapters narrated by peripheral characters affected by Alison’s death.

Claire was 7 when the tragedy occurred, and the novel is set 18 years later. Claire, now known as Emily, is living in New York when, by chance, she meets one of the two Black resort employees accused of Alison’s murder. Her grief resurfaces and she obsessively begins to follow the man, Clive Richardson. Interspersed with excerpts from Alison’s audio diary, news articles and other bits and pieces, the reader and Claire discover who Alison really was.

No one at book club really loved this novel — maybe it was because none of the characters was all that likable. But as one member said, these books sometimes spur the best conversations. Part of our lively discussion centered around tropical vacations where you drive through poverty before entering the golden gates of the resort.

I was intrigued enough to start the Hulu series based on the book, starring West Duchovny, the day after we met for book club.

Young weaves together mystery, romance and time travel in this cozy novel.

In a small North Carolina town, the Farrow women are known for their exotic flower farm — and their instability. For a year, June Farrow has been hearing whispered voices and seeing things. She fears that the “madness” that grips the Farrow women has come for her. After her grandmother dies, she finds some clues about her mother’s disappearance — a mom who vanished when June was a baby and has been presumed dead.

Her grandmother’s friend encourages her to “step through the door,” a red door that June thought was just a hallucination, and June does just that, finding herself in 1951 with a husband and child she doesn’t remember.

Most book club members liked this book though they found the time travel timeline confusing and wished the author had explained more about the family curse. One member said it was especially hard to keep track of timelines and characters on the audiobook. Another member who did not read the book’s synopsis initially thought the book was about generational mental illness, so was jarred by the time travel aspect.