Book Review // Miracle Creek

Rating: 5/5

Synopsis:

"How far will you go to protect your family? Will you keep their secrets? Ignore their lies?

In a small town in Virginia, a group of people know each other because they’re part of a special treatment center, a hyperbaric chamber that may cure a range of conditions from infertility to autism. But then the chamber explodes, two people die, and it’s clear the explosion wasn’t an accident. 

A powerful showdown unfolds as the story moves across characters who are all maybe keeping secrets, hiding betrayals. Chapter by chapter, we shift alliances and gather evidence: Was it the careless mother of a patient? Was it the owners, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their daughter to college? Could it have been a protester, trying to prove the treatment isn’t safe?" Amazon.com

Review:

“That was both the best and worst part, that all that happened was the unintended consequence of a good person’s mistake.”

I have been stewing over this novel for the entire week and I have found it so hard to write down my thoughts. I know they won’t adequately convey how powerful and meaningful this book was to me. However, let me just give some scattered thoughts and see if they make any sense.

First off, I love reading a courtroom drama. It reminded me a lot of how I felt while reading Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult (which you know is one of my all time favorite books). With each chapter, you learn more and more from every character involved in the explosion. Everyone had their own chapter and point of view. And with every story, we also learned the secrets they were keeping from each other (and the attorney’s). 

The beginning was definitely dense and took a minute to figure out each characters role in the story (who was the one going in for the oxygen dives, who were the parents of the children, and who was in charge). It didn’t take long after that first hump to get momentum going. I couldn’t put this book down. I read partial pages whenever I could find a few seconds (and I rarely do that!). 

As the story moved forward, Kitt, Young, and Elizabeth’s stories resonated most with me most mainly because of our commonality of motherhood. It is a hard job being a mother. The pressures we constantly feel, the responsibilities that are never ending, and the heartbreak of seeing our children suffer. But also the sisterhood we feel together when we share parts of ourselves, our dark secrets, our deep feelings, and our scariest vulnerabilities. We’ve all felt them and it connects us deeply when we share them and feel heard and understood.

My heart broke when everything started to unravel, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t guess “who set the fire.” I made several accusations before the pieces started falling into place. 

This was Angie Kim’s debut novel, what!? A freaking Harvard Law grad and best-seller author. You are the queen, Angie!