Angie Kim manages to pack in a remarkable number of ideas and themes into this book without once making it look overcrowded or haphazard. The STEM content was on the high side for me, to be honest, though I admired her diligence in terms of the research that is clearly gone into writing this.

The story, on the other hand, has moments that are almost luminous. Although this is ostensibly about the disappearance of a middle-aged father from a Korean-American family with more than its fair share of secrets, it is more a musing on the nature of family, culture, disability, communication, and language.

After going out for a walk with his son Eugene - who is on the autism spectrum and also has a diagnosis of the more rare mosaic Angelman's Syndrome - Mia's father fails to return home. Instead, Eugene shows up alone, frantic and covered in blood, but unable to communicate what has happened due to his condition.

How we conflate intelligence with fluent speech is one of the many interesting themes of this book - also exemplified by the fact that Mia's mother is looked down upon in America because of her limited English language skills, even though she is highly intelligent, and an educated person.

All in all, this is a really interesting book - essentially a meditation on life masquerading as a mystery story. Well worth reading.