Cover Image: Miracle Creek

Miracle Creek

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Member Reviews

Thank to netgalley and the author/publisher for the Arc for my honest review.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to be approved for this arc. I’ve been eyeing this book for awhile. The medical topic, the mystery / thrill aspect. Autism. It all drew me in and intrigued me.
I had high hopes for this book, and I can truly say I wasn’t let down.
It’s a great book, some rare slow moments; But such an interesting book!

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"Tragedies don't inoculate you against further tragedies, and misfortune doesn't get sprinkled out in fair proportions; bad things get hurled at you in clumps and batches, unmanageable and messy."

As I close my Kindle after reading the last few pages, I'm absolutely and totally satisfied with the beautiful and moving story I just finished. This type of book is a bit outside my usual genre, but I picked it up because it had several key elements that made it sound appealing: medical stuff (hyperbaric oxygen therapy), autistic children, death (accident, murder, arson?) courtroom drama and family saga. It's a complicated and heartbreaking novel with beautiful writing and well-drawn characters that I could completely relate to and empathize with. There are so many great quotes I could share from the novel, but I'll leave this here: "We all have thoughts that shame us. Hubris. The worst sin."

On a hot summer night, the Miracle Creek Submarine hyperbaric oxygen treatment center is up and running its last dive of the day. Inside are 3 disabled kids and 3 adults -- hooked up with astronaut-like helmets to tubing that connects to the tanks outside. A fire. An explosion. Death and disability. Who is to blame - was it an accident or something worse?

The owners are Korean immigrants trying to give their teenaged daughter a better life in America by setting up this therapy. The mothers who were there were just trying to help their children. The protesters were angry that the mothers wouldn't accept that HBOT was dangerous and experimental. An infertile couple desperate to try anything to conceive. "That was both the best and worst part, that all that happened was the unintended consequence of a good person's mistakes." NO SPOILERS.

Just read this. It would make a great book club selection as there are so many universal truths within to debate and discuss. I can even see this as a fantastic movie. Thank you to NetGalley and Sarah Crichton Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.

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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book! It’s out April 16, 2019 (but FYI, it’s also an April Book of the Month selection!).

Miracle Creek was a great read. An intriguing whodunnit with so many layers to the crime and to the entire cast of characters, it kept me guessing — suspecting, but not knowing — all the way up until the end. And it also broke my heart and showed real humanity throughout.

The story begins on the day of the explosion. Young Yoo is helping her husband, Pak, at the Miracle Submarine — a pressurized oxygen tank that delivers pure oxygen to those inside for a “dive.” This is supposed to help the cells heal more quickly than they would on their own, and the Yoos’ patients include those with autism, cerebral palsy, infertility, etc. But that day, everything spirals out of control, and the barn housing the Miracle Submarine explodes.

Fast forward to a year later, and the mother of one of the children who’d been inside at the time of the explosion is on trial. He and another child’s mother had been killed, and the police believe his mother was tired of caring for a special-needs child, wanted her life back, and strategically placed a lit cigarette on top of a pile of kindling under the oxygen tube so that her child would die.

But as the trial begins, we see that it’s probably not that simple. So many others — the doctor who’d been in the dive to cure his infertility and who’d had a secret friendship (half a wink wink here) with the Yoos’ daughter Mary, the doctor’s wife, another mother who’d been inside the tank, Young, Mary, Pak — all weave their narrative together until nobody (whether inside the story or just reading it) is sure of anything anymore. Who lit the fire? And why?

What emerges from this tangled web of information are a few themes:

- Motherhood, in all its forms. Whether it’s Young and Mary’s complicated relationship, or the demand, competition, stress, guilt, and joy that comes with parenting a special-needs child, it’s all in there.

- Immigration. Mary and Young immigrated to the US from Korea when Mary was young, and Pak stayed behind. This splintered their family in more ways than one.

- Racism. Everyone who either is or is related/married to someone from Korea is touched by racism in their experiences.

- Honesty. With each other and ourselves.

- The fact that every action has consequences, and every word you say affects the people around you in ways that you will never know. That everyone has an untold story, untold experiences. And that if any teeny, tiny thing happened in a different way, everything could be different.

This was really well done, a fantastic debut. Read it — and then let me know so we can talk through it.

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Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and to NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A year after a fire burns down a medical facility at Miracle Creek, leaving two dead and several severely injured, this book takes us through the court case that follows. With each chapter, a different person's POV was given, and then picked up again in later chapters. And with each person involved in the case, the story takes another turn. Was what happened really an accident? Each person has their dirty secrets, and their fears about those coming out, and each has issues with what happened and how they influenced it.

It took me a while to get into this book, as the many ttwists and turns, the white lies and also the in-depth background stories on all characters involved made it hard to keep up with. After a certain point though, I was hooked and could not put it down, and the questions on morality, trust and value of life stayed with me after I finished.

Overall, this is a beautifully written, intense, well-crafted courtroom drama that I would very much recommend.

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Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for sharing Angie Kim’s upcoming novel. It was wonderful and so much more than I was anticipating. This is a well-plotted courtroom drama but more than that. There are many stories revealed through the multiple characters and the themes touched on include immigration and marriage but mostly on the love and sacrifices of parents for their children. The descriptions of the mothers’ feelings towards their children were so well-done and amazingly and bravely true to life. This is a great title if you liked Defending Jacob, but I will be recommending this to everyone.

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This is an excellent story and not easily categorized - it's a courtroom drama, a mystery, an immigrant story, and an analysis of motherhood and marriage, among many other issues. This story takes place through multiple POVs, and even when the particular character is a distasteful person I was intrigued to see what terrible choice they'd make next.
Kim's writing is excellent, you wouldn't even think this is a debut. I read this book over the course of a day, intrigued to see how the consequences of each choice made that fateful day led to the deaths the trial is focused on. Miracle Creek will make an excellent book club choice; it's a fast paced read with a great deal of nuance to discuss. I look forward to everyone having the chance to read this book for themselves on release day.

Thank you to the publisher via NetGalley for providing me with an arc for review. This in no way influenced my opinion.

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This story is being told a year after the events, so first the actual day is being ‘relived’ in court. After that we follow the story of found evidence being discussed, and flashback of the different characters related to this evidence.I really enjoyed this was of telling. Since really soon in the story we know what happened, and you can really start to figure things out yourself!
Within the first 2/3 chapters there were like 10 characters introduced, who all had a play in the story. So in the beginning I struggled a bit with figuring out who was who, and what their connection was with each other. And since we didn’t know the characters really well the flashbacks are a bit hard to follow in the first 100 pages or something.
But even though the beginning was confusing, the story really grabbed my attention. I really wanted to know who did it with what reason. In the beginning there are definitely a certain amount of people possible suspects, all with good reasons, so that made it a bit difficult to figure out. And that was nice, I don’t like it if the offender is found really quickly.
I do think that some of the flashback were a bit too much. Like it was important for the story that Janine and Matt had fertility problems, but I didn’t need a 4 page description of what they all tried to get pregnant. Also Theresa described how happy she was having no ‘duties’ for the first time in forever, but again I didn’t need 3 pages..
But overall I really enjoyed the story. I liked the Korean aspect as well, seeing how it was for them to move to America! I’m not going to day more, since for mysteries it is better if you don’t know too much!

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The first thing that struck me upon my reading of Miracle Creek is how fearless Angie Kim is as a writer. The structure of her novel is intricate and complex, weaving through the lens of multiple characters, offering different viewpoints of a particular event/incident. She keeps most of the narration in the third person, which is a smart move. It also lends itself well to the setting of the courtroom, allowing us to take in the testimony and not be distracted by a first person account of inner angst. The only first person narration we are given is at the beginning in the epilogue, the moments just before the fire and the outside view of the barn after the flames have started their song and dance.

Through the testimony we are invited into the inner space of the submarine, with investigations pointing to Elizabeth Ward, mother of Henry Ward, one of the victims in the fire. Elizabeth has been seeking treatment for her autistic son in the HBOT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy). Her strange behaviour on the day in question, as well as her location outside the submarine instead of inside it with her son, is what drenches her with culpability. She was also found with the cigarettes and matches that caused the blaze.

This doesn’t mean that our search for the assailant is over. Elizabeth’s mute demeanour in court does not reveal much, though most who look at her believe they see a guilty person. I found myself on the fence, acknowledging that Elizabeth must have at times felt overwhelmed in dealing with Henry’s autism, but uncertain as to whether a mother could allow herself to take her child’s life for that reason.

Among the complicated mother-child relationships is Young and her daughter Mary. Young doesn’t understand why there is a distance between them. What she doesn’t know is that Mary resents her for her silent acquiescence to the move to America, despite being strongly against it. She detests her mother for her obedience, for not asserting herself in things that matter. As a result, Mary starts to align herself with her father Pak, the man in charge of the Miracle Submarine, who was noticeably missing from the site when everything went down. Often we see the two in cahoots, trading secrets about the day in question, so much lies and secrets permeating the air that we no longer know what to believe anymore.

As a reader, we sympathise with both Young and Mary. A mother would want the best for a child, even if that means a life away from anything familiar. Mary’s position as an outsider displaces her from everything she knows about herself. Even her name has to change – all these efforts for increased assimilation that only result in further estrangement.

My favorite thing about this book is the dismantling of the saintly mother archetype that has become a social expectation. Mothers feel like they need to show how much they are doing for their children, to paint over their struggles with pink glow and stardust, to pretend everything is okay when it really isn’t. Kim’s focus here is on mothers who care for children with disabilities, the exhaustion that comes from doing a mountain of tasks, oftentimes with nothing to show for it. Every mother just wants their child to fit in and belong, but it is difficult for these kids when they are marked as different. There is much vulnerability here as these mothers bare their souls to us, their hurt and quiet despair radiating the oblivion that surrounds them always. It is an oblivion they constantly step away from because of their roles as mothers.

The characters in Kim’s novel are not bad people, merely good people with very human thoughts. Sometimes these thoughts take on a tangible form, becoming mistakes that develop into fires, destroying in minutes everything that has been so agonisingly build up.

Miracle Creek is about human relationships and human choices, and how we sometimes choose to hide and cloak in secret what we should instead be sharing with those closest to us. Lies and secrets have consequences, so do mistakes. It is these consequences we have to contend with, recognising that truth and morals should always be things to strive for, yet there is great difficulty in accepting those paths. It is the support of those around us that gives us strength to pursue what is right. They help to cushion our fall against the hard reality of life, allowing us to accept and take in our stride our follies and errors, with the hope to do better next time.

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Miracle Creek - Pub date April 16, 2019

I tore through this courtroom drama in less than 2 days. There is a TON going on here, and yet none of it feels ancillary or unnecessary. Every character we meet has purpose, and has a life much more complex than meets the eye. It can be tricky to tell a story this nuanced with multiple narrators and keep the reader from getting confused, but I was gripped by each account, each character's perspective and perception of the tragic events around which this story centers. There are some controversial elements at play here; non-traditional medical procedures, mothers of autistic children being honest about how hard their lives are and fantasizing about what things would be like with "normal" children, inappropriate conduct with a minor - and yet Kim doesn't pass judgment or make commentary on any of it. This helps ground the narrative itself, and leaves much to the reader. One of my favorite books I've read all year so far.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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This book follows the mystery of an arson case on an experimental medical facility. We learn about the events through the court proceedings a year after the fire, where one suspect is on trial. There are many twists and turns as we try to piece together what really happened. I liked this book and appreciated the representation it offered for characters not always written about in fiction- children with disabilities, their parents who struggle to know the best way to care for their children, and an immigrant family. Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for sharing an e-copy of this book with me in exchange for an honest review.

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Immigrant hardships, convoluted mystery, family drama, courtroom antics, and absolute heartache—this five-star amazing debut novel from author Angie Kim has it ALL. This book almost had me in tears towards the end and as a bookbitch I rarely cry over my fiction. Thank you so much to @netgalley and the publisher for this special read.

The book focuses on the aftermath of a fiery explosion in a medical oxygen chamber that leaves two dead and more injured. Throughout the legal courtroom battle to find someone guilty and flashbacks to the day of, characters continually reveal more and more of the truths they’ve been hiding from themselves and others to move the plot along. The writing here is tight, the characters are full-fleshed and flawed.

Sometimes it’s irritating when a writer ties every loose thread together in the end, but Kim finds a satisfying way to resolve her multiple plot points without oversimplifying the story. There’s a lot going on here, but Kim binds it all together with a focus on lies. The secrets we keep from our loved ones and the lies we tell ourselves have so much power to harm. This novel explores the damage that they do and the healing powers of love.

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Rating: 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars

In this debut book, Angie Kim, pulls together a story with many seemingly disparate threads. Per her Goodreads Author page, I understand that she has personal experience in most of the different areas the books explores. “Miracle Creek” blends stories about a family’s immigration experience from South Korea to the USA; living with and trying to treat autistic and disabled children; and solves a mystery that unfolds as part of a courtroom drama. The story is told in alternating chapters by many of the book’s protagonists.

We meet the Yoo family as the beginning of the book. Pak (the father), Young, (the mother), and their teen-aged daughter Mary, have recently set up the Miracle Submarine business just off Miracle Creek in rural Virginia. The “submarine” is actually a pressurized oxygen chamber which people use hoping that it will help with, or cure, various forms of physical ailments. Horrifically, something goes terribly wrong during a group ‘dive’ and the chamber explodes, killing two of its occupants.

Most of the story is then told in dual storylines from the current day courtroom trial, and the various experiences from all concerned about what lead up to the explosion. While trying to solve the mystery we encounter family deceptions; marital deceptions; teenage angst; immigration assimilation issues; quite a bit of information about various therapies in used trying to treat autism among young children; as well as the hurdles faced in families that have a child with disabilities.

I’ve given this book 3.5 stars, but rounded up to 4 stars. At first I was going to round down to 3 stars, but over the last few days I’ve thought more and more about the plot of the story, the empathy and skill with which the storylines were told, and the book’s ultimate outcome. The fact that those elements were all well communicated made me change my mind and bump up the rating to 4 stars. This author convinced me that she knew her subject matter, and has honed her writing craft in order to tell a story that is compelling, educating, and entertaining.

‘Thank-You’ to NetGalley; the publisher, Sarah Crichton Books (Farrar, Straus, Giroux); and the author, Angie Kim; for providing a free e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Whew! What a convoluted web Kim has constructed to describe the trial of a mother whose autistic son was killed during hyperbaric oxygen therapy. It is a complex labyrinthine construction that left me in awe of Kim's writing prowess. There are a number of people who are involved in this tangled web, with chapters devoted to each character. What emerges is the lies and deceptions that occur when not willing to commit to the truth. But packed within this are issues of trust, immigration, loneliness, anger, autism and infertility. However, the field never feels crowded and the peeling of the onion layers leaves one breathless with Kim's cultivation of her craft. It is a book I could read again and again.

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It took me a little while to get into this book, in the beginning it was a little difficult to figure out all the characters and their roles in the story. But then it started to fall together and held my interest for the rest of the book.
I found myself learning about hyperbaric oxygen chambers, and seeing what happens when things go wrong, accidentally or by design.

The patients range from moms and their special needs kids, and also a medical doctor; and the operators are recent Korean immigrants. There is a very serious explosion with the chamber and two people are killed, and several others injured. The incident is determined to have been deliberately set by a likely subject and goes to trial. The book goes on to describe the trial, and details the various interactions among the characters, and it keeps you guessing as to what actually happened. It's well worth reading, and it touches deeply on many areas - race and immigration, special needs kids and their moms, people who protested the chamber's existence, marriages, and a criminal trial.

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This fascinating debut novel covers all the bases - family drama, mystery, courtroom drama. A Korean couple opens an alternative health clinic that provides HBOT - hyperbaric oxygenation, which is supposed to help with autism, infertility, CP and other health problems. On a day that protesters have gathered outside the facility, it explodes. The same day one of the mothers chooses not to accompany her autistic son into the chamber. The same day the couple are both away from the controls of the chamber. So, who exactly is to blame when all the participants are either killed or injured? Who could be that much of a monster?

Told from multiple points of view, we get to see both the day of the “accident”, their lives prior to it and the ensuing court case when the mother is charged with murder. The multiple points of view are extremely effective. “Teresa hadn’t expected an exact match between his memories and hers - she watched Law and Order; she wasn’t that naive- but still the difference was unnerving.”

We are taken into the world of parenting autistic children; the anguish and the hardships but also the bliss of a small achievement.

Some of the scenes described are gruesome. They’re also so incredibly well described you feel like you’re there. The image of a child’s adult teeth exposed above the baby teeth will stay with me for ages.

OMG, I loved these characters. They all seem to have something to hide, they all are so achingly imperfect. So often thinking that their one little omission doesn’t matter. Kim uses these omissions to keep the reader guessing. Every time I thought I had figured out who the murderer was, Kim would throw a wrench into the mix and it would all be up for grabs again.

And the writing is spot on perfect. Not necessarily lush, but so descriptive. I found myself repeatedly nodding my head in agreement. There are some fascinating philosophical issues raised here. This would make a great book club selection. Highly recommend!

My thanks to netgalley and Farrah, Stroud and Giroux for an advance copy of this book.

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A fire burns down a medical facility at Miracle Creek, leaving two dead and some injured. The book guides the reader through the courtcase that follows. With each new witness the story takes another turn. Was it really an accident?

It took me a while to absorb this book. Its many twists and turns, white lies and indepth background stories on all characters involved making it slow-going.
Miracle Creek is a beautifully written, intense, well crafted courtroom drama that kept me guessing till the end.

Thank you Netgalley and Farrer Straus Giroux for the ARC

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Heart breaking and suspenseful! Reminded me of Jodi Picoult or Celeste Ng! Court room drama about a woman accused of killling her autistic son by enrolling him in an scientific experiment. Fascinating and thought provoking.

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If Big Little Lies were a courtroom drama, this would be it. Angie Kim weaves together multiple characters and flashbacks with engaging courtroom scenes to create a truly unique story. The honest, emotional response of the parents whose children suffering from autism (and cerebral palsy) was heartbreaking and realistic. I tired of the characters as the book dragged on, and thought some of it could've been a bit more concise. I also didn't understand the constant lying by literally every character; it made me want to yell at the book sometimes. Still, I thought the writing was fantastic, and I think this would be a great book for discussion.

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A thrilling debut novel for Angie Kim about how far we’ll go to protect what is dear to us and the consequences.

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This book was a most exciting, touching, heartbreaking and very well written experience. This is the kind of fiction book I love most: A real story, a "drama" - not as in "genre" and not as in "soap opera", but as in: a story of everyday, real people, with real problems, people with faults and flaws, people who keep secrets, have shameful thoughts, make mistakes - and try to do their best. Sometimes, they suceed, other times, they don't. Sometimes, the actions lead to heartbreaking conequences.

The story: The titular Miracle Creek is a little village/town, home of the Yoo family, who immigrated from South Korea in the hope for a better future for their daughter. They run a treatment facility, known as "Miracle Submarine", a chamber for an treatment with pressurized oxygen which is supposedly the answer to many issues, infertility and autism among them. But the unthinkable happens: The chamber catches fire, two people die, more are injured. Who is to blame? A courtroom drama unfolds.

The writing: The characters are all well developed and growing throughout (one character I inititally disliked, then they broke my heart) - yes, it is quite a cast, but Kim introduces her readers gently and shapes her creations with great care. The POV is switching with every chapter- It's always 3rd person, with focus on the POV, sometimes switching back and forth in time, when the narrating character is remembering things. And there's a lot to remember. The courtroom scenes were super exciting and filled with tension throughout, I loved the back and fourth between the prosecutor and the laywer, giving the backstory a thrilling spin.

The themes: The incident with the blown up chamber happened a year before the central courtroom drama, and the people who'd undergone the treatment had become a close knit group (they did the one hour treatment twice a day, for more than a month). Most of them were mothers with their children who suffered from autism or disabilities. The question of being a caregiver to an "forever" child is one of the huge moral issues raised in this book. How much do you have to do? What is too little, what it too much? At what point does "caring for my child" switches to overbearing, maybe even abuse? And what happens if there's a day you feel like you can't go on anymore? All these moral and ethical questions as well as the sensitive topics were handled with great care by the author. Yet she didn't shy away from making points that hurt: hearing them, reading them, imagening the described situation.

Another strong theme is family/family loyalty/loyalty in general: what secrets do you keep in order to protect the ones you love (or yourself)? When becomes a secret a lie and if a lie has no consequences, why not tell the truth? Next theme: immigration and cultural identity. Not only reprensented in the Yoo family and their personal story, but also within the mixed couple Matt and Janine, who also struggle with their cultural identities, their ideas of marriage and family and their own families' expectations.

It's hard to believe this is a debut novel, the way Angie Kim brings her characters alive as real persons with all their faults and flaws feels like she's been doing it for years. From what I gather, she could get back to lots of personal experience for this one: she practiced as a trial lawyer and underwent the oxygen treatment that's such a central part of this book with one of her sons. It'll be interesting to see where her next novel will lead her and how she'll handle a topic maybe "newish" to her - I'll be there to read it sure enough ;)

This book has been compared to Celeste Ng's "Little Fires Everywhere", which I also loved, and I could also see the similarities. Both books feature awesome characters and characterisations. Both books deal, to some extent, with similar themes and styles (immigration, settling into a new culture, big cast, multiple POVs, secrets and lies, often in order to protect the ones you love). Both book also had a certain moral issue concerning parenting (adoption in "Fires", children with a disability in "Creek") and both, in a way, featured and "unusual extra character" (the town of Shaker Heights in "Fires", the Miracle Submarine in "Creek"). I loved both books and am pretty sure that if you enjoyed either, you'll also like the other one.

Tl;dr: This is so well executed throughout. Spot on characters, really moving (heartbreaking) story with many issues to think about. A perfect book club read and strong contender for one of my favourite novels this year.

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