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From WBEZ Chicago, I'm Greta Johnson and this is the Nerd Up Book Club.

It's just like a regular book club except sometimes the author stops by.

I am so excited to tell you about our September pick.

It is Angie Kim's second novel, Happiness Falls, which is by far one of my favorite books

from the year. It takes place during the social distancing days of the pandemic,

but it is not a quote unquote COVID novel. Instead, the fact that everyone in

stuck at home is kind of just the perfect equation for propelling the action of the story.

It is told from the point of view of Mia, who's home from college during lockdown,

back under the same roof with her twin brother John and their younger brother Eugene,

who has autism and is nonverbal. And one day Eugene comes home early from a hike in a nearby

park without his dad. Adam is gone and it's up to the family to figure out what happened.

They are utterly convinced that he wouldn't abandon them, but he was also definitely

keeping some secrets of his own. This is a novel with a mystery at its core of it explores

themes also around ableism and cultural identity. And if you can ever really truly be happy,

that's all I'm going to say for now since this is a spoiler-free conversation. Angie,

welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Greta. As you were doing the intro,

we're staring at each other on Zoom. And I was just beaming and just trying to keep from screaming

out loud how excited I am. Well, I am thrilled to have you. Thank you so much for having me.

Let's do it. So yeah, you are covering so much ground in this book. I'd love to know kind of which

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