Reviews with content warning for Medical content - The Heart Principle – L'ipotenusa dell'amore

I cried a lot while reading the last portion of this book. I don’t think this should have been marketed as a rom com novel. To me, the romance was merely a subplot to a more impactful, thought provoking, brutally honest character driven piece. Anna is dealing with some intensely heavy events in her life and while Quan is there to help her, this ultimately is her story. Her struggles with finding out in her adult life that is on the spectrum, the moments while taking care of her Dad that the thought of suicide is in her mind, the burnout from hyper focusing on what other people want and expect when it came to being a violinist.

All of it was authentic, real and in Helen Hoang’s own written words “half a memoir about her own struggles” shortly after her second novel was published. I deeply implore those who haven’t read this to do so and this one is by far my favorite out of the three.

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marywahlmeierbracciano's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

5.0

Anna, an autistic violinist whose perfectionism is keeping her from making music, decides to seek out a one-night stand after her longtime boyfriend calls for an open relationship. Quan is a motorcycle-riding cancer survivor looking to make his post-surgery sexual debut no-strings-attached. Things don’t go as planned, but Anna and Quan keep meeting up, falling further for each other with each passing day. Just as things start heating up, Anna is pulled into a family crisis that she knows she can’t handle. Helen Hoang expertly explores neurodiversity, difficult family relationships, and impossible decisions with a super sexy love story that tenderly handles sexual hangups and insecurities. I loved every minute and can’t wait to read more!

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samantical's review against another edition

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emotional 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

4.5

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theespressoedition's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring 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

When I found out that Helen Hoang was adding another novel to The Kiss Quotient series, I was so excited. I honestly didn't think anything could compete with my love for The Bride Test, but this book completely blew me away.

One of the things that I find incredibly impressive is when an author can flawlessly mesh really heavy, challenging topics with humor and romance. That is a skill that I don't see very often if I'm perfectly honest, which is why so many of the romantic comedies I read are rated with only three stars. They're fine, they're cute, but they're not great.

Helen's writing is great.

Let's start with the main character. She's struggling with her music after going viral, which is something that feels very relatable. Living up to the standard that has been set for you can seem so daunting, so my heart immediately went out to Anna before even knowing much else about her.

Like most of the other books by Helen, there is autism representation and it is incredibly written. While her other books focus on individuals who already know about their diagnosis or happen to meet someone who is on the spectrum, Anna discovers that she is autistic mid-book. It's a different approach and it wrecked me. The way her family treats her, the way she wants to treat herself but doesn't really know how, and of course the way Quan treats her - it crashed down on me like a true wave of emotions.

In the midst of all of this, something truly traumatic happens in Anna's life. In order to touch on this, I'm going to add a spoiler warning because I feel like it's important for me to mention it but I don't want to ruin anything for anyone else.

Anna's dad has a stroke. It's fatal. This was the most challenging aspect of the book for me because my own dad had a stroke several years ago and was in the ICU for a prolonged period of time. I related to the up-and-down feelings of coming to terms with saying goodbye only to be told that he's stable the next day since that's exactly what happened with my own dad. However, the death of Anna's dad is beyond heartbreaking because there was so much pain surrounding the way he wanted to be treated and couldn't communicate it with anyone in addition to Anna knowing and not being able to fulfill his wishes. My own dad survived, for which I will never be able to express my full gratitude, but reliving the emotions of that period of time while reading this book was incredibly challenging for me.

I'll admit that I nearly DNF'd because of the triggering content, but I knew that it would be better for me in the long run if I continued. And I'm glad I did.

There were so many moments where I wanted to scream at Anna to make a different choice. But I know that my screams mimicked the ones in her own mind. It was a really intense book to read, considering how light so much of it was.

Of course, I need to talk about the lightness and the romance aspect as well! Quan is a dream. Truly, he's an absolutely perfect book boyfriend and I loved him from the minute I "met" him on the page. His desire to meet Anna where she is because of his own "shortcomings" made him all the more wonderful. His insecurities made him feel realistic and he has his own challenges throughout the story too. I really enjoyed reading from his perspective (I love a dual POV in romance) because it gave me a better understanding of just why he was so lovable!

Gosh, I really feel like I could go on forever about this book. It was everything I hoped it would be and so much more. This is a book I'll want to pick up again and again.

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pia_h's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

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valeria_gzz's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-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

5 stars. Oh man this book gets me, and I get it. In the best and worst ways. I feel like crying.

I usually don’t like it when the romance takes a backseat in the story but I think with reading this I’ve realized that I don’t like when that happens and I don’t connect with the main character/s, because I loved this book. I don’t know where but I saw a review of someone saying they didn’t like this book because they thought Quan changed himself for Anna but I didn’t see that at all.

This feels like when I read Act Your Age Eve Brown but I like it better (surprisingly) because of the fact that the romance wasn’t the biggest part of the book but instead Anna’s problems were. I like it for the same reasons if that wasn’t clear

I can’t say that I related with Quan’s storyline as much as I did with Anna but I didn’t dread his pov’s at all. I love Quan so much, he is so kind, caring, and most of all understanding and I loved getting to know him better in this book❤️

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kalin_grace's review against another edition

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challenging emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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