Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - How to Excavate a Heart

"Well, this isn't goodbye. It's 'I'll run you over with my car again later.'"
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Every year, I try to read one Winter holiday themed book.

I definitely had some misconceptions about How To Excavate a Heart (HTEaH), which ended up working against the book. To be fair, the synopsis does tell you that what you think will play a big part doesn't.

So. The synopsis mentions that Shani (the MC) is doing a "month-long paleoichthyology internship," which I thought was going to be really cool to read about it. But it honestly barely impacts the story. It mostly seemed like the author needed a way to give Shani a gay mentor (a.k.a. Mandira).
A typical day at her internship Shani: cleans fossils, gets coffee with Mandira, talks to Mandira about her [Shani’s] gay problems, goes home. Rinse and repeat. The doctor that Shani is interning for is written off as being anti-social and spends all his time in his office. Shani has maybe two encounters with him? And this is someone that she supposedly admires. Idk. And for someone supposedly super passionate about dead fish, it's only ever really mentioned on the first day of her internship.

Speaking of the internship... I guess in my head the fact that Shani was doing an internship during her winter break from college, I thought the characters would be older. But Shani is 18, and her love interest is 17 (May). It is very much a teen romance. Which is fine, but I thought it was going to be closer to the New Adult side of the spectrum.

I've seen others say this is an enemies-to-lovers romance, but to that, I say, "Where????" I'll say it's hate-to-love, but the hate doesn't last very long.

After reading the author's acknowledgments, HTEaH seems very much like a self-insert of Jake Arlow. A lot of it seems to draw from Arlow's life at the time that they wrote this. The book itself is well-written, and Arloe definitely hits a lot of those quintessential winter romance moments.

Things that worked for me:
❄️ the snow
❄️ Raphael the Corgi 🐕
❄️ Shani and May's bickering
❄️ dates in the museum
❄️ the meet-cute

Things that didn't work for me:
🐟 so so very saccharine
🐟 not enough paleoichthyology :(
🐟 insta-love
🐟 the use of sexual assault to further the plot

Throughout HTEaH, Shani hints at the fact that she has some hang-ups when it comes to sex. And very close to the end, we learn that Shani was sexually assaulted by her own girlfriend. Since one of the themes of the book is self-discovery, this would have been a great time for Arlow to explore what it means to be ready to have sex - and that it's okay to wait until you feel ready to have sex rather than cave in to societal/internal pressures.

The end of the book felt like Arlow realized that Shani should show some personal growth, but rather than have Shani actually show growth, we're told it. It felt forced and landed a little flat.

The amount of times I wrote "Poor Luke :(" in my notes 🥲 Ironic that Shani would take advantage of Luke's crush on her just so she could get free coffee (that she apparently didn't even like that much ugh!)

Content Warnings

drbws's review against another edition

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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? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was a very cute YA book. I think younger me would have really benefited from it and older me enjoyed seeing the found friendships and the self discovery.

Content Warnings