Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Shark Heart: A Love Story

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Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habeck

48 reviews

kelshenka's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

An incredible mix of magic and reality. A love story matrushka doll with so much heart and sorrow. The characters feel real, and I want to hug them all.

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mementomoriiv's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

4.25

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karina_dreamsinwords's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Every now and then a book comes along that ends up surprising me with how much I absolutely adored it. This strange little novel has managed to burrow itself into my heart with its beautiful prose and introspective nature.

Shark Heart follows newlyweds Wren and Lewis as they navigate life after Lewis’ life altering diagnosis where he turns into a great white shark over the course of nine months.

I KNOW what you’re thinking, because I thought it too before picking this up. “Why would I want to read a book like that?” Well my friend, that’s because this is more than just that.. it’s a tale of marriage, motherhood, metamorphosis & letting go.

We see Wren care for Lewis is ways that display true love, as she has to learn to care for him during his transition. The love between the two never falters and watching Wren do everything she can for the love of her life was beautiful, heart wrenching, yet inspirational at the same time.

”The surface of love was a feeling, but beyond this thin layer, there was a fathomless, winding maze of caverns offering many places to see and explore. Wren used to think romantic passion only grew more intense in the depths. But this belief was naive and impractical, a by-product of a certainty-obsessed culture that equates love with longing and views ambivalence as a fatal flaw.

Wren saw that now how passion was delicate and temporary, a visitor, a feeling that would come and go. Feelings fled under pressure; feelings did not light the darkness. What remained strong in the deep, the hard times, was love as an effort, a doing, a conscious act of will. Soulmates, like her and Lewis, were not theoretical and found. They were tangible, built.”

I had to share the whole scene to showcase the absolute beauty that Habeck brings forth through these pages. This story. These characters.

The author managed to weave together this story so beautifully. I am in awe at this debut, how this all came together and how much this story touched me. The exploration of motherhood, love and hope was done so well. I applaud Habeck’s creative genius for delivering such a strange novel that has so much heart at its core. I know I’ll be revisiting this book to relive this story again.💙

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aksmith92's review against another edition

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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

4.5

"Will you let me stand beside you on your plot of earth? We'll tell the weeds to grow tall around our ankles, and when the wind gives us sycamore seeds, we'll raise them as sprouts, seedlings, saplings until they overpower, shade, and nurture us. Our trees will grow for two hundred years or more as our union becomes even more unquestionable and strong. Unquestionable because no one will remember a time when we were not creating our universe. Strong because trees two hundred years old have been great witnesses to it all. Then, one day, we’ll die gladly into the soil we shared, and fungi will take over what was once our bodies. Bouquets of mushrooms, little families, will mark the place of our lives.”

Overall, this book stood out for its unique narrative style, weaving battles of grief, illness, transformation, and change into a tapestry of strange yet poignant events.

The Setup: Wren and Lewis have been married for an extremely short period of time when Lewis receives an unexpected diagnosis after experiencing some odd symptoms: Lewis is turning into a great white shark. Animal mutation is simply part of the story here, and mostly everyone knows someone who has transformed into an animal. There are hospitals for specific animal mutations - Lewis to go into Ocean 1 first. The novel is broken up into three parts: (1) The love story between Wren and Lewis and their journey from when Lewis receives his diagnosis to when he has to be released into the ocean, (2) A flashback from Wren's family and life before Lewis, and (3) Back to present day in Wren and Lewis's new lives. Some of the story is told in play form, and other parts are just plain ole' literary fiction.

What I Loved: Truly, this was one of the more unique stories I've read. Emily Habeck's prose was original and lovely. It seemed that she had a love for poetry and theater and wove those into the sentence structure here. I did have some minor qualms with it along the way, but I truly loved her unique voice and the storytelling. This novel was innovative and intriguing and kept me vested. The characters had distinct voices and their own personalities (which I always look for in books), and I felt their emotions and overall development throughout the novel. The idea of animal mutation was something I hadn't read about before; I appreciated the thoughtfulness around this illness and how it could be connected with plenty of our own diseases (e.g., Alzheimer's, dementia, cancer, etc.) in this world. This story tugged heavily on my heartstrings and made me think a lot about love and change and family and personal growth. I really, really enjoyed this book and believe that it will sit with me for a long time.

What Kept It From 5 Stars? This is likely a me thing, but I sometimes struggle with literary fiction. I find this hard to do, and rarely can an author ultimately achieve it if they are writing literary fiction - sometimes, the sentences and flow feel forced. It's like Emily Habeck was trying deeply to be profound. A dramatic flare popped up every so often where I didn't think it needed to. While I loved the prose, don't get me wrong, once in a while, I wanted to be like, "It's not that deep, Emily Habeck." It was rare enough that it didn't impact the entire reading experience, and once again, overall, I enjoyed this book. However, it was still there, lurking every so often.

I will put a spoiler on this because while I found it predictable, it isn't the most obvious:

The pregnancy at the end of the book was an interesting choice. While I could see why it was important and something our main character, Wren, grappled with even towards the end of Lewis's diagnosis, it felt slightly forced. I generally don't like unexpected pregnancies in novels, and while this one made a bit more sense, I still felt like it was just "eh." Ultimately, it only impacted my rating a little because I enjoyed watching Wren's daughter grow up a bit.

Please know BEFORE reading this story - if you are very much into Science Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, or the intricacies/details of Magical Realism, and you expect this book to scratch that itch - it WON'T! This is a literary fiction book at its core, and I am finding some reviews of people who didn't enjoy this book that much because they had the wrong expectations of it. I went in knowing it was literary fiction very well; therefore, I think that mindset helped my overall experience with the book. Yes, it had a bit of a magical realism component, but it's not detailed or explained - it's just part of the narrative—food for thought as you decide if you want to read this book. I still recommend you do it because it's excellent!

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found myself shedding some tears, laughing at moments, and intrigued by the storytelling and closure. I found this to be quite well done for a debut novel, and I look forward to seeing what Emily Habeck comes out with next.

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theyellowbrickreader's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional fast-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

3.5

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lauren_shilling's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

5.0

This book blew me away. I had just gotten out of a reading slump, so I was a little wary of picking up a book that was this long, as I tend to stick with shorter books when I'm recovering from a slump. However, I decided to read it anyway because it was a five star prediction, and it had been calling to me for a while now. I am so glad I chose to pick it up! It was a five star, as I predicted, and I am so happy about that! This book was heartbreaking and beautiful and just full of so much emotion. I loved all of the characters, and I loved seeing all of the stories that unfold over the course of this book. Wren and Angela were my clear favorite characters, I thought their stories were told beautifully, and I felt so much for them and their experiences. I think hearing most of Wren's story and her experience with her husband's mutation into a great white shark was so heartbreaking, and then when we hear her mother, Angela's story, it tied so much more of Wren's character together while also allowing us to get to know another woman who's story is just as impactful. Everything about this book was incredibly executed, and I loved every second of it. It's also super quick to get through! There are a lot of pages, but the chapters are very short. The longest one is only about three or four pages long. A lot of them aren't even a full page long. This not only makes this book a quicker read than you might think because of the page count, but it also lends itself really well to this story. I think for me, the honest simplicity of how it was told make the very complex emotions and experiences I was reading about seem so real. I'm not really sure how to explain it, but it was so well done. It's a very honest book, and it feels so real, even as it talks about things that don't happen in the real world. I felt every second of this story, and it was so incredibly well done. Probably one of the best books I'll read this year.

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megan_mac_'s review against another edition

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sad

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No

2.25

this book was not for me. I get what the author tried to do, but to me it wasn't successful. I was annoyed at a lot and overall didn't really enjoy the reading of it. Kind of a bummer.

Best part for me was Margaret B Finnegan 😂

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