Author: Jasmine Warga
Edition: Hodder & Stoughton, 2015
Rating: ★★★★★
Review
I feel like I've been reading a lot of books lately that centre around mental illness. Not that it's a bad thing, I'm glad to read about these issues, learning a little bit more about them. The trouble I find with them is that there's rarely a happily ever after ending. I totally understand why, but as a firm believer in happy endings, I hate it when a book doesn't deliver, no matter what the story is.
My Heart and Other Black Holes, however, gave the usually sad story of depression and suicide a, perhaps not happy but, hopeful ending. It brought a little bit of light to an otherwise dark sub-section of YA fiction.
The pain, guilt, sadness and hate that Roman and Aysel feel towards themselves was really hard to read and a lot of the time I found myself exclaiming out loud because some of the description seemed to hit the nail on the head, making complicated or difficult to understand concepts as clear and simple as possible. As I learnt more about Roman and Aysel, their families who loved them and the tragic events that led them to each other, I found myself desperate for them to find hope. The way the chapter headings counted down to the date they'd set for their joint suicide made it impossible to stop reading; I had to know if this day was going to change things for them.
I was surprised to find that the relationship between Roman and Aysel was my favourite part of this book. I was surprised because they don't crash into love with each other, or become completely infatuated within a few chapters, which is what I normally love to read. Instead, their relationship blossoms slowly. They don't become friends instantly. It takes time for them to even seem comfortable around one another, and then it takes another while for them to start having feelings for one another.
I gave My Heart and Other Black Holes five stars because Warga tells Aysel's story with such beautiful language and manages to convey messages in a way that made me wonder why I hadn't thought about things in that way before. There were frank, and sometimes brutal, sentences that ripped my heart out and made sure that I couldn't tell which way the ending would go. And that's all I'm going to say on the matter.
Favourite Quote
"Like life can seem awful and unfixable until the universe shifts a little and the observation point is altered, and then suddenly, everything seems more bearable."
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