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

Reviews tagging 'Lesbophobia'

How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow

7 reviews

bdingz's review against another edition

hopeful lighthearted medium-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

3.5

I enjoyed this! A nice holiday romance that incorporates Christmas but at the same time, isn’t too holiday-heavy. I think it could be read any time of year. I wasn’t blown away, but I liked it.

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kathryn_reads_paiges's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.25

I really liked this one overall! Definitely more YA than NA, and more Hanukkah + Christmas vibes than either holiday in the plot. It felt a bit immature for me at times and Shani recognizes this about herself…yet the behavior continues. The lesbian + Jewish rep here seemed great, though, and the characters made me laugh more than once. And this is the first book I’ve read with a focus on paleoichthyology!

Points for more “holigay” reading and more fiction set in the DC area (but not another political thriller). I adored the nod to the Smithsonian, the metro (ugh), almost certainly Politics & Prose, and “Big Blue Dog” Cafe aka “Little Red Fox” (formerly next to P&P, RIP). So much adorable corgi content, too!

CW: Sexual assault (but the character’s experience is validated)

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lqvekanej's review

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hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.0

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thebookpaiges's review

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emotional funny hopeful 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

4.75

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cjreadstoomuch's review

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective 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

4.75

Content Warnings

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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bookcheshirecat's review

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

3.5

“To quote the most famous lesbian of all time, Elsa of Arendelle, “The past is in the past.”

How to Excavate a Heart is a romance between two Jewish girls who meet during the festive season. I thought this was a cute, fun read, especially as I like to read some romances that aren't centered on Christmas in December! Shani is doing a month-long paleoichthyology internship in a new city while also trying to get over the complicated past with her ex-girlfriend. She's living with a cool older woman and some other teens for the time being and their dynamic was fun! Generally, this is a great, mostly lighthearted (non-Christmas) holiday read! Toward the end, there is a discussion about past sexual assault, though the author does warn about this at the beginning of the book! Shani's experience is validated of course, but it's still important to know that there is an in-depth discussion about the hurt her ex caused!
While I enjoyed the romance it was very insta-love and took over the story a bit too much. May and Shani were cute together and the premise of Shani accidentally hitting her with her mom's car showed promise. Yet I felt like they got obsessed with each other way too quickly for no reason. It annoyed me a bit that Shani's internship took such a backseat to the romance, especially as we see her making careless mistakes at work because she's only thinking about May. Things like that happen, but it didn't feel like she was that remorseful and it was also a bit unprofessional how she kept talking to her coworker about her love life 🙈 Another thing that annoyed me was how Shani treated a barista who had a crush on her. Instead of telling him point blank that she wasn't interested, she kept leading him on in order to get free drinks and laughed about it with her love interest. That could have been handled differently, as it felt very mean-spirited for no good reason!

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