Reviews with content warning for Rape - How to Excavate a Heart

This was fun and cute - definitely felt a lot like YA a lot of the time as Shanni could be self-centred and immature. However, she also was born in this millennium so she's young enough I won't hold it against her. I loved Raphael and Beatrice, although I wish we had learned more about Shanni's great grandmother, or honestly any of her family in general.

The romance plot was cute - it was very surface-level, but also I get it. This was definitely a book where a lot of the secondary characters were more interesting than the protagonists, so I wish we'd seen more of them, but it was still a fun read.

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justinelilyh's review

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emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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jenmaysiereads's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

1 out of 5 stars

Based on the cover, the rave reviews and the author talking about the book on social media, I was ready to absolutely adore this book. ‘How to Excavate a Heart’ was billed to me as a sapphic Jewish twist on the holiday rom-com featuring an absolutely adorable corgi.

The book begins when our protagonist Shani runs into May. Like, quite literally — with her mom's Subaru. To start, attempted vehicular manslaughter was not part of Shani's plan for the winter break. Shani was supposed to be focusing every morsel of her attention on her month-long palaeontology, spending all her time thinking about long-dead dish and not at all about how she was unceremoniously dumped mere days before winter break. But when a dog-walking gig places her firmly back in May’s path, the fossils she’s meant to be diligently studying are pushed aside — alongside any thoughts of her ex.

As things start to become more serious, Shani’s hurt over her ex-girlfriend comes rushing back to the forefront and threatens to unravel the delicate blossom of her new relationship.

To be completely honest, this book is not good. I’ve become accustomed to a lot of heterosexual adult romances being pretty poorly written — after reading ‘The Spanish Love Deception’, the ‘Bromance Bookclub’ and snippets of Colleen Hoover’s novels (among others), I’m generally more surprised when a straight romance novel is actually well written. Well written romances, I previously believed, were reserved for the sapphics.

‘How to Excavate a Heart’ has certainly proved that hypothesis wrong. Good news: publishers are now also releasing poorly written sapphic romances; goodbye homophobia! Equality is now!

The writing in this book is immensely juvenile and feels more like the beta draft of a Wattpad fanfic (derogatory) than a traditionally published, well-written and properly edited novel. The structure of the sentences are baffling; within the first page, I was squinting at my ebook as I trudged my three collective brain cells through the awkwardly phrased sentences. There is evidence of unpolished writing on almost every page of the novel; from the way the chapters are structured like scenes in the pilot episode of a low-budget CW show to the way conflict is introduced in egregious and unrealistic ways.

One of the first sequences in the novel is a scene in which Shani and her mother are bickering, while driving through a near-blizzard, about Shani doing her internship. While her mother is being mildly annoying, Shani is being truly awful to the poor woman — a trend which continues throughout the book and receives no real resolution. Instead of communicating with her mother clearly and concisely, Shani is continuously combative and is fully cognisant of this fact.

Frankly, Shani is one of the worst —if not The Worst— protagonists I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading about. Not only is this girl utterly foul to her mother, she’s incredibly selfish, small-minded and pathetic.

Actually, pathetic doesn’t even begin to describe Shani. The reason she is not with her mother for the holiday season (which a major point of conflict throughout the book) is because she is so desperate to follow through on her internship. The book tells us again and again that Shani is ultra, super passionate about palaeontology. That being said, the moment her romance with May begins to develop, Shani stops caring about her internship. It gets so bad and she becomes so distracted by this fledgling romance that throws priceless, scientifically ground-breaking fossils in the bin.

Let me reiterate: Shani, who we’ve been told revers the field of palaeontology and for whom this internship is a dream-come-true throws priceless artefacts in the trash… Personally, if I were her manager, I would’ve convicted of murder after that. As someone who had a huge (huge!) palaeontology and dinosaur obsession throughout my life and who did minor studies in the field during my time at university, I could not imagine liking someone so much that I throw fossils —literal million year-old artefacts that have ground-breaking scientific potential— in the bin, even if it were an accident.

To make matters worse, this situation comes after her manger repeatedly told Shani she has “been kind of distracted every day—not that you've been doing bad work… But you've definitely been distracted” and “to take lunch now? And when [Shani comes] back, [she’ll] put [her] phone away for the rest of the day” when “she sees the useless tears prickling at the corner of [Shani’s] eyes.”

Her romance with May is rushed and immature, even for characters who are supposed to be around 17–18 years old. They start out being haughty and mean to each for no good reason whatsoever. Then, somehow, a switch randomly flips and their relationship becomes a romance. It’s not really worth talking about the romance itself because their interactions involve them either bickering or being awkwardly romantic with one another. The romance very much relies on the insta-love trope which is immediately a bad sign for my tastes and really hammers home the immaturity of their relationship — especially because the two end up saying “I love you” despite only knowing one another for three weeks, maximum.

Every other character in this book has no merit; there are so many side characters that don’t need to be here. There’s entire scenes which involve this acne-riddled teenage barista boy who keeps flirting for Shani which does nothing for the narrative. Nobody is likeable. The characters are so unimportant to the novel that I can’t even recall the name of the best friend character, which is ironic given Shani’s propensity to also forget her existence whenever she’s in a relationship.

Honestly, despite all of this, I was planning on giving this book 2 stars. I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt given that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of poorly written straight romances and did not want to add to the negative reviews about this book. However, there is an aspect to this book that really distressed me and that’s the insertion of the sexual assault plot point.

The book reveals at around the 80% mark that part of the reason Shani has unresolved trauma from her break-up with her ex-girlfriend is because said ex-girlfriend sexually assaulted her.

Representation of queer women who are sexually assaulted by other queer women is important because it’s a topic that’s scarcely spoken of. However, ‘How to Excavate a Heart ‘ does not deal with this issue in a mature, nuanced or sensitive manner at all. If anything, it felt little more like a means to an end, a plot point to be whipped out at the very end to excuse the main character’s bad personality and then brushed over.

There's a way to write trauma-related outbursts, sexual assault storyline’s and relationship issues, but this isn't it. I don't believe the storyline or its ramifications were well executed at all. Sexual assault is hard to write about and have conversations about in general, but even more so when the book is attempting to be a feel-good, lighthearted teenage romance and keeping everything surface level. It really does a disservice to such an important topic. If you’re going to include healing from sexual abuse trauma in a romance novel, introducing this facet of the characters experiences must happen prior to the 80% mark and can’t be used as a pseudo plot-twist.(Note: While the book references Shani’s discomfort over being sexually intimate a few times, it only reveals the reason behind this quite late into the book.)

If Shani’s trauma had been a key component of the story and her journey to dealing with her trauma was a main plot point of the book then perhaps my rating would be different. Instead, sexual assault is used in ‘How to Excavate a Heart’ as a ungraceful, forced conflict between Shani and various other characters and never gets properly discussed. Only once is the experience actually called sexual assault and, again, this happens very late into the book. The treatment of the topic in this book really made me question whether or not sensitivity readers were brought in to give notes on the representation of sexual assault. I truly cannot conceive of how this ham-fisted inclusion made it into a traditionally published novel.

Ultimately, I’m really disappointed with this book. It had so much potential to be a great sapphic, Jewish romance that pushes against stereotypes and tells a nuanced story of growing up, becoming independent and uncovering who you are outside the pretences of relationships. Sadly, it wasn’t even close to that. I really wish I could give this a higher rating, but due to the insensitive and needless portray of sexual assault, I really don’t feel comfortable giving this anything higher.

One final, lighter gripe with the book— the dog was not in it enough! Poor Raphael carried this book on his little fluffy back and got no appreciation for his troubles.

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amy_reading_23's review

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funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

4.75

This is cute, wintery lesbian fluff. I also liked the main characters interest in science and the romance of the city she is in as well as between her and the love interest.

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imstephtacular's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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betweentheshelves's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-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

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperTeen for an advanced copy of How to Excavate a Heart to review! I'm always looking for great new holiday romances, and while this one isn't super heavy on the holiday, it's a treat! You'll definitely want to add it to your winter TBRs.

How to Excavate a Heart reads like a typical rom-com. An accidental meet up leads to something more. The setting is around Christmas, but both of our protagonists are Jewish. They have quite a few conversations about the overall holiday season and I thought they were great. They added a different perspective to the typical holiday romance we see, and we need more of that!

The evolving romance between Shani and May is also adorable. Yes, they make teenage mistakes, but that's to be expected. Also, some of the subject matter gets a bit heavier than I was expecting. Be warned if you jump into this one, there are some discussions about sexual assualt. It adds an emotional depth but doesn't take away from that mostly lighthearted feel. I would equate it to the way Heartstopper deals with eating disorders/depression/anxiety.

All in all, if you're looking for an emotionally deep holiday story not centered around Christmas, I recommend checking this one out!
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This is a cute, sort-of holiday romance you'll definitely want to read this holiday season! Stay tuned for a full review to come tomorrow!

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wordnerdy's review

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emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective

4.5

https://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2022/10/2022-book-167.html

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