Reviews with content warning for Bullying - The Heart Principle

I found this book the easiest of the trilogy to fall into, and I honestly thought the Bride Test was amazing. I’m so glad I did read the authors end note first, and felt it gave me a deeper feeling for Anna and her emotions for how they connected like a memoir to Helen’s. 💕

Going into this I was so giddy for Quan to be the male lead, and Helen just ripped my heart out and twisted my brain to make me understand why I should love him more. Every part of Anna and Quan’s love story was real and rough, and I loved how both of them were so separate and working on themselves throughout the novel.

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alyssasaurus's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Oof, this book. I LOVED Anna and Quan. Their chemistry and the way they meet each other where they need is beautiful. But the tension with the family and the detailed description of burnout and suicidal ideation were pretty triggering for me. And, the explanations of how Anna starts to get better toward the end got kind of stilted.

It’s a bummer, because the first half of the book handled mental health and therapy so gracefully and realistically without being boring or heavy handed. All in all, loved the couple, but the story was kind of hard to finish.

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blackveilbeccy's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I liked this book but it was a much heavier read than the other two. I felt the female lead had way more screen time than the male lead and would have liked this a bit better balanced. The family dynamics of the female lead were challenging for me as they were so toxic.

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internationalreads's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.0

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booking_along's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

a great addition and ending to this trilogy.

i loved getting Quan as a main character since he was such an interesting one in the other two books.
i love how hoang wrote him as this very accepting self assured man that had no problem taking about feelings and being who he was, helping other find themselves as well. sad to say that that is not seen to often not only in the romance genre but in fiction and real life as well, that a man is simple comfortable with himself and maybe cause of that just accepts people as they are.

i enjoyed experiencing anna’s journey to finding out that she is autistic.
especially the section where her first reaction is to deny it because “… i hate mate. i don’t have a photographic memory. i fit in. i have freunde, a boyfriend, even my moms friends like me. i’m nothing like sheldon from the big bang theory or - or- or the bro thy er in rain man.” and being told that that’s just stereotypical misperceptions and not typical autistic marks.

i really enjoyed the dynamic between anna and quan and how he helped her become her own person by accepting who she was, simply because he wanted to know her and liked her.

“he trusts me to know myself. i didn’t know how important that was to me until now.”

i struggled with the other parts of the book, though.

i think mostly because the relationship between anna and her sister where too similar to my own issues with my sister and how she sees me. too similarity to anna and her sister, my own seems to believe that pushing and listing all my faults is the best way to get me where she wants me to be and is incapable of seeing her own wrongs in doing so.
i think that was what made it hard for me to enjoy especially those sections of the book. it was just too close to what i experienced too often myself.

i wasn’t a fan of the moments with anna’s father either. but than i am a big believer of ”if you can be a version of who you where before something happened but are just a shell, that’s no life at all”
so reading about her dad being forced to go on… not fun for me.

all in all?
this was a good book and i really enjoyed the entire trilogy.
also i am sure i will be rereading this sometime, if for nothing else but to see a great representation and all the different versions autism can take and i haven’t seen in any other fiction books before!

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