Reviews with content warning for Ableism - The Heart Principle

Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

286 reviews

mariainestb's review

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challenging emotional sad medium-paced

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

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angelfireeast24's review against another edition

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I thought this was going to be a romance but it's more a heartbreaking story about Anna. There is romance but I can't deal with so much pain right now

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teatunesandtales's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Part fiction, part memoir. Thank you Helen Hoang for writing my story also.

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jillkaarlela's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful 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

4.0

Taylor Swift songs: “I’m only me when I’m with you”

Age rating: 17+ (3 brief steamy scenes, 1.5/5🌶️)

This was a fairly emotional romance where the fmc has to cope with her autism spectrum diagnosis and unlearning her habits of masking. Please read with care and check the TW. This deals with pretty heavy topics. She has spent her whole life living for other people, doing only what everyone else wants, and it’s eating away at her. I love the journey of her finding the one person who never makes her feel like she has to put on a show. Quan is the one person who sees and loves Ana for her, and the only one who she doesn’t have to “mask” with. Their love is so tender and healing for both of them. I love the “failed” one night stand trope, where they plan to have a one night stand, but can’t seem to let each other go. They hold each other through truly dark times. They are just so perfect for each other!!

The way that Ana’s family treats her makes me want to scream. They always tell her what to do, and treat her with “tough love”, which is actually just bulldozing her wants and needs. It truly hearts my heart. This novel was definitely heavier than Hoang’s other novels, and it wasn’t my favorite, but it was still really great!

“When I realize I’m going south on the 101, I’m not surprised that I’m going straight to her. My compass always points to her.”

TW: emotional abuse, cancer (testicular), ableism, gaslighting, “tough love” very unsupportive family, terminal illness/end of life care, grief, death

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marleens's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

This is a tough one to review, because I feel like I went in with the wrong expectations. I wasn’t expecting full-on romcom vibes, but I definitely think that the first 2 books of the series were a lot more lighthearted than this 3rd book. I did absolutely love Anna and Quan, both as separate characters as well as their relationship. Their characters and the romance could have made this a five star read. But the heavy plot was such a big part of the story that it became a very tough read. This is of course a good thing if that was the intention of the author, and I do think she did a great job writing this (and I’m glad I read the author’s note at the end). But this book just made me sad and angry so often, which is not the reading experience I’m looking for in this genre.

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scarroll178's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

2.5

This book taught me a lot about autistic burnout and caregiver burnout, and for that I really appreciate it.

It was also written painfully badly in some places. The author tackles a lot of really serious topics in this book, but the pure level of cheese with which she writes about those topics is —

Ugh.

I respect that some of the things she talks about come from her own experience, but here’s the thing: I’m not critiquing those parts of the book. At all. Anna’s sections of the book are much stronger and more grounded than Quan’s sections. For instance, during one very emotionally intense part of the book, Quan talks about his pain in the most embarrassing, edge lord way possible.

I’m not gonna take the time to write the full quote, but he’s basically like “I want to break rules, break things, watch smoke blacken the sky. I crave the taste of pain. Nothing could rival this gaping sense of betrayal.” 💀💀💀

The sex scenes were also really boring, and normally that’s something I could force myself through, but in this book there’s a sex scene so bad it made me laugh out loud when I was reading it.

Anna is trying to apologize to Quan, and she decides the best way to make up for agreeing to marry another dude is to strip and masturbate for him, to show him how much she trusts him I guess??? Not what they were fighting about btw, there was never any question that Anna trusted Quan. The issue was that HE couldn’t trust HER anymore because SHE AGREED TO MARRY ANOTHER DUDE. The author delivers this scene without a hint of humor or irony. It’s all very serious and earnest, and that just makes it funnier tbh

Yeah… I just couldn’t take this book seriously. I really liked it at first, but it just got worse and worse as it went on. This is the first book in a really long time that I wish I had just put down without finishing, cause the beginning is so much better than the end.

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ffionjohnson's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

I LOVED THIS SO MUCH. My first ever five star romance! The neurodiversity rep was amazing - there were a couple of outdated terms bUT THEN THE BOOK EXPLAINED THAT “this term isn’t actually used anymore and here’s why” so it was just amazing!!!!! There were only two tiny ick moments for me which is barely ANYTHING for me in a romance and they were very quickly redeemed. So so impressed with this book - I just loved it.

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xandriaisreading's review

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.5

I found my way back to this series and I'm glad I did. I connected so much with Anna and her journey. It's not far off from the journey I'm currently on.

While her actions can be frustrating, they're understandable. Masking to the point that you lose yourself and sense of control. To get so low to the point she got before she really started to make a change, my heart ached for her. Especially during the conversations with her sister.

I really enjoyed this book just as I have the others. I wish we got to see more interactions with the previous main characters. To have Anna and Stella interact and have someone who more closely understands her struggle would've been interesting to read.

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kenzithereader's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.0

The book wasn't bad, but it was my least favorite of the series. I loved the first two and their lighthearted good time romance with a sprinkle of issues. This third book felt more like it was about the characters struggle with family and autism and was really bleak for a lot of the book. The romance started to feel like the side plot and the story was much heavier than I'd anticipated.

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evidoe's review against another edition

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emotional reflective 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

5.0

This is packaged as a romance but I really wouldn’t class it as one. It has romance in it but it,, it deals with some heavy themes around carer burnout and the mental toll of masking neurodivergency that some readers might find a bit raw for a romance but they are the reason I loved this book:

I think that this was half fiction half memoir really shines in this book. As someone who is neurodivergent who masked most of my life AND had been/is a carer for family this book just spoke to my experiences, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so seen.

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