Reviews

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

Only show reviews with written explanations

chattycabi's review against another edition

emotional mysterious 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

3.75

The main characters are delightful and you want them to get over their nonsense to get together. But there is both too much world building in some places and not enough in others. The book is about 60 pages too long in the middle. But the end will make you cry both happy and sad tears.

everybody's review

Go to review page

1.0

This book made me legitimately angry in a way that I haven't experienced in a long time. It's not because of the writing; the writing is fine. It's not because of the world-building, which is excellent! It's not because of the overall storytelling, the pacing, or due to shallow or inconsistent characters. All that was actually quite good.
There will be very general spoilers from here on out.

This book makes me angry because it tells two stories. The first story is the intended one, directly inspired by "You’ve Got Mail." I think the execution was decent, even though some fans disagree. The problem is the second story, which is told entirely by accident. And it's a perfect example of something very wrong and incredibly toxic in how many women view men in modern society.

The second story is about a woman driving the man she loves, who arguably loves her much more than she loves him, into literal suicide through absurd expectations and a complete lack of willingness to give him any chances whatsoever.

The MC is very tall and attractive, with a brooding personality. He appears hard-edged and cynical from the outside but is incredibly sweet, loving, and emotionally vulnerable on the inside. On top of that, he is deeply emotionally damaged by repeated trauma through loss and abandonment and believes he is not worthy of being cared for, let alone loved.
(Let's ignore how trite all these individual tropes are, as the actual character that emerges from this can still be quite interesting, as he is well-written in this case.)

My anger stems from how the author presents the relationship between him and her as if, in general, his belief that he is not worth being loved is correct, but the FMC is so selfless and benevolent to bestow him with affection despite him not being deserving. This is never explicitly expressed this way anywhere, but the incredible moral double standard the MC and the FMC are held to makes it very obvious. It's this typical female empowerment gone wrong type of thing, where the fight against sexism failed and mutated into more sexism. There is no reverse sexism. It's just called sexism. It doesn't matter who does it.

There is a fundamental, deep-seated female entitlement at work here that ultimately defines the entire conclusion of this story. He isn't even allowed to kill himself over his broken heart, which she carelessly broke. Twice. Everything he does is because he is afraid of loosing her and she tramples all over him because of it. Even in his suicide he actually does something noble to protect others.
And he is not allowed to apologize for the attempt either. Every mistake she makes in the end is bent into somehow also being his fault through incredible mental gymnastics or ignored.

It's sickening, and I am shocked that nobody else seems to criticize this.

She doesn't deserve him. All I want is for her to stay abandoned and alone until she dies from old age and for him to find someone else who appreciates him for who he is—prickly and distant on the outside but loving, caring, and sweet on the inside. He is such an incredible man who deserves everything good in his life.

Until the very end I was hoping for some kind of redemption for her in recognizing the many unintentional cruelties she inflicted. Even just an apology would have at least shown some awareness of how messed up this all was.
And the only conclusion I can come to is that the author never even considered any of it. That is the part that truly made me angry.
It's not intentional. It's entirely accidental.