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3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
hopeful
reflective
I've had The Library of Heartbeats on my tbr for so long as I purchased the ebook but decided to finally pick it up when searching for a new audiobook to listen to. It's pretty disappointing that I didn't end up enjoying this one more after all this time.
I feel like I didn't connect with the characters or story at all, so I don't have any true feelings towards the book other than I was a bit bored. I found the audiobook itself to be somewhat confusing to listen to, I'm not sure if that was from the layout of the book, as well as the narrator who I didn't vibe with, so I regret not reading this via ebook as I originally planned.
2 stars
I feel like I didn't connect with the characters or story at all, so I don't have any true feelings towards the book other than I was a bit bored. I found the audiobook itself to be somewhat confusing to listen to, I'm not sure if that was from the layout of the book, as well as the narrator who I didn't vibe with, so I regret not reading this via ebook as I originally planned.
2 stars
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is a beautifully written book, one that I will have to read again now that I can put all of the pieces together. Being that the book is titled, “The Heartbeat Library,” I was really hoping to read more about the characters’ experience at the Heartbeat Library.
Some of the quotes that I felt were worth highlighting:
-“What matters most… is go preserve our memory, because people come back to life only in the memory of others.”
-“On one of those days, in a gap left unsupervised between lunch and dinner, he realized that no one ever talked about how much this illusory shallowness cost in happiness: it was true that suffering less was equivalent to silencing pain, but it also meant putting a part of yourself out of use, the same part that, crucially, held the capacity for joy.”
-“When we cry, we save ourselves a little.”
-“To be happy, first of all you need to imagine being happy.” “Happiness often starts with a lie. And if you insist on believing it, it becomes true.”
-“Theirs is a second family, deeply attached to the memory of the first and all the connections that remain within people even after those they love have passed away. Death, Hana sometimes says, doesn’t have to take someone away from you.”
-“For them, their departed loved ones are a place they keep going back to, and nostalgia is a feeling they know well. It’s like huddling in front of a fire after a downpour and waiting to dry off completely, knowing that a small patch will remain damp forever.”
Some of the quotes that I felt were worth highlighting:
-“What matters most… is go preserve our memory, because people come back to life only in the memory of others.”
-“On one of those days, in a gap left unsupervised between lunch and dinner, he realized that no one ever talked about how much this illusory shallowness cost in happiness: it was true that suffering less was equivalent to silencing pain, but it also meant putting a part of yourself out of use, the same part that, crucially, held the capacity for joy.”
-“When we cry, we save ourselves a little.”
-“To be happy, first of all you need to imagine being happy.” “Happiness often starts with a lie. And if you insist on believing it, it becomes true.”
-“Theirs is a second family, deeply attached to the memory of the first and all the connections that remain within people even after those they love have passed away. Death, Hana sometimes says, doesn’t have to take someone away from you.”
-“For them, their departed loved ones are a place they keep going back to, and nostalgia is a feeling they know well. It’s like huddling in front of a fire after a downpour and waiting to dry off completely, knowing that a small patch will remain damp forever.”
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Initially when reading this I felt like it jumped around quite a lot, and I really wasn’t sure what was going on, but as it went on I found this really moving.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
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
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Heartbeat Library is a lovely novel centering on Shuichi, a well-known children's book illustrator, who returns to his childhood home after his mother's death. Along with the home, he seems to have inherited an 8 year old neighbor, Kente. The little boy was close to Shuichi's mother, who helped him with homework. His parents both work and he is a latch key child. He is socially awkward, lonely, and needs what Shuichi ends up offering him, a caring mentor. But Shuichi is also lost and needs something. We eventually learn that he suffered a tragedy that permeates his life. He is middle aged, but carries the weight of grief for his supportive mother and for his terrible tragic experience. He and Kente add in a friend, a woman they meet who happened to have an unexpected connection to Shuichi and his mother.
I read the audio version of this novel. It was lovely. I was entranced. It may seem slow at times, but I did not feel that way. I felt like every piece of the story had to belong to make it so meaningful. How each of us processes loss, grief, not quite fitting in, needing others but not expressing our needs well and coming out okay, sort of, is what this powerful book tackles in a way that sounds right. The title gets its name from a fully indexed library of recorded heartbeats on an island in Japan. The recordings are from all over the world. At the right time, Shuichi realizes he needs to go there. I highly recommend this novel.
Narration by Kenichiro Thomson was very good.
I read the audio version of this novel. It was lovely. I was entranced. It may seem slow at times, but I did not feel that way. I felt like every piece of the story had to belong to make it so meaningful. How each of us processes loss, grief, not quite fitting in, needing others but not expressing our needs well and coming out okay, sort of, is what this powerful book tackles in a way that sounds right. The title gets its name from a fully indexed library of recorded heartbeats on an island in Japan. The recordings are from all over the world. At the right time, Shuichi realizes he needs to go there. I highly recommend this novel.
Narration by Kenichiro Thomson was very good.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I didn’t have many expectations going into this book, having never read this author before but even with no expectations I still left disappointed. I think the premise of the book overall just fell flat. I didn’t enjoy the detached writing style. I was interested enough to finish but now a few days later I remember practically nothing.
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Messina is an Italian author who has lived in Japan for a long time with her family. This book is a contemporary literary story mostly about Shuichi, a man who has lived through much grief and returns home to Kamakura to take care of his recently passed mother’s house.
It’s also about the titular location of artist Christian Boltanski‘s Archives du Coeur, an art installation where the heartbeats of people all over the world are recorded and accessible for visitors.
It’s also about enduring unimaginable grief, as well as everyday griefs, and how its people who come in and out of our lives who make it worth living each day.
Told in non-linear style, we hear about Shuichi coming to his mother’s house, only to find out there is a young thief stealing items. Catching the thief starts Shuichi on a journey of dealing with his grief that ends, fittingly, at the Heartbeat Library on Teshima island– a real place.
There are memories of his childhood, memories of the boy’s childhood, mysterious trips to the island in past tense, and throughout it all a philosophical, flowery language that seems very much in line with Japanese literature, but could also be a byproduct of the translation from Italian.
This particular style of slightly abstract writing and allusion tends to make me feel at a distance from the writing– an appreciation of literature as art– as opposed to being immersed in the story and attached to the characters. That is true here. So while I appreciated the book as a work of art, and it evoked feelings, it also evoked an airy sense of immaterialness that wasn’t to my personal reading taste.
Still, as a cultural reference, a literary work, and for the coolness of the Heartbeat Library itself, worth a read. I also recommend for Japanese ex-pat perspective on grief Yuko Taniguchi’s Ocean in the Closet.
It’s also about the titular location of artist Christian Boltanski‘s Archives du Coeur, an art installation where the heartbeats of people all over the world are recorded and accessible for visitors.
It’s also about enduring unimaginable grief, as well as everyday griefs, and how its people who come in and out of our lives who make it worth living each day.
Told in non-linear style, we hear about Shuichi coming to his mother’s house, only to find out there is a young thief stealing items. Catching the thief starts Shuichi on a journey of dealing with his grief that ends, fittingly, at the Heartbeat Library on Teshima island– a real place.
There are memories of his childhood, memories of the boy’s childhood, mysterious trips to the island in past tense, and throughout it all a philosophical, flowery language that seems very much in line with Japanese literature, but could also be a byproduct of the translation from Italian.
This particular style of slightly abstract writing and allusion tends to make me feel at a distance from the writing– an appreciation of literature as art– as opposed to being immersed in the story and attached to the characters. That is true here. So while I appreciated the book as a work of art, and it evoked feelings, it also evoked an airy sense of immaterialness that wasn’t to my personal reading taste.
Still, as a cultural reference, a literary work, and for the coolness of the Heartbeat Library itself, worth a read. I also recommend for Japanese ex-pat perspective on grief Yuko Taniguchi’s Ocean in the Closet.