Author: Jasmine Warga
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Source: Balzer + Bray via Edelweiss
Goodreads
Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back, and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness.Review by Nara
There’s only one problem: she’s not sure she has the courage to do it alone. But once she discovers a website with a section called Suicide Partners, Aysel’s convinced she’s found her solution: a teen boy with the username FrozenRobot (aka Roman) who’s haunted by a family tragedy is looking for a partner.
Even though Aysel and Roman have nothing in common, they slowly start to fill in each other’s broken lives. But as their suicide pact becomes more concrete, Aysel begins to question whether she really wants to go through with it. Ultimately, she must choose between wanting to die or trying to convince Roman to live so they can discover the potential of their energy together. Except that Roman may not be so easy to convince.
THE TEARS.
BUT ALSO THE WARM FUZZIES.
BUT ALSO THE FEELS.
BUT ALSO THE LAUGHTER.
SO MANY EMOTIONS.
I CAN'T EVEN.
Well done, Jasmine Warga, well done. You have successfully manipulated my feels to a degree that I aksdlhfkjalwheflf.
I really actually admire when authors can do this: when they can strike up that perfect balance between light and dark; laughter and tears.
Aysel was a fantastic protagonist. She was snarky, a physics fan and had the most interesting sort of black humour- it was extremely easy to like her. Especially in such a character driven novel, she was certainly the perfect narrator. Also, a main character with a murderer for a father? Not something you see often.
To be honest, the romance was a bit shaky, and perhaps wandering that line of instalove, but in a book where the primary focus was the coming of age of the narrator independent of the romance, I didn't really mind. The other thing about the romance was that it was somewhat difficult to root for, considering that the two characters were in a suicide pact. But again, this wasn't a huge issue as there were other more aspects of the story which were able to draw you in.
Well, My Heart and Other Black Holes will definitely be a book that I will be rereading at some point. It'd be interesting to see if it has the same impact on a second read.
Incredible
RatingsOverall: 9/10
Plot: 4.5/5
Romance: 4/5
Writing: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Cover: 3/5
