_onemorechapter_ 's review for:

The Library of Heartbeats by Laura Imai Messina

4.0

adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective 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: No

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💭 On the Japanese island of Teshima there is a library of heartbeats, where the heartbeats of visitors from around the world are collected. The heartbeats of people still alive or who have passed away continue to echo. I found the idea behind this novel rather intriguing. However, this archive only really comes into the story at the end.
 
There are several different threads to the story, which is quite confusing at first, but does become clear eventually. Mainly it's told from Suichi's point of view - his mother has recently died and he has moved back to his childhood home to sort through her things. He becomes aware of a child who has been visiting the house and making off with low-value stuff. Kenta has an unhappy homelife, and few friends in school. As the trust between them grows, they discover they share a bond that will tie them together for life. The odd and you can say adorable way the relationship between Shuichi and Kenta builds is so smile-worthy. Their journey will lead them to Teshima. It's at this visit where the entirety of the story comes together.

I enjoyed immersing in each of their thoughts which were entirely representative of their character, the one you imagined complementing the one the author gifts us. The philosophical nature of the narrative sparks endless pondering.
Ethereal feel to a more than powerful narrative, the figurative speech is walking on the side of poetry. The author paints the images with an evocative brush and the emotions with a poignant one. The philosophy in the writing was sincere and heartfelt. The author understood the effects of trauma.
This book is also about memories, how fluid or cemented or both they can be. About healing and the power of friendship.

This is a book that could so easily have veered towards sentimentality but not at all. As with many Japanese-based tales, there is a sense of melancholy and the first half of the book has an underlying sense of sadness. But as the story progresses a powerful and deep tenderness emerges; the aforementioned library brings the story to its denouement with unexpected results.

Overall, The Library of Heartbeats is a little bit of a slow burner, but it is built into a powerfully emotional book. This is a quiet book without bangs and whistles, although there are plenty of emotive impacts, but Messina's ability to delve into the human spirit, and memory, and deal with loss, makes for a spellbinding story that works its magic around you all the same.
Truly beautiful- let yourself escape, breathe and immerse yourself and your heart in this wonderful book.

𝐏.𝐒 Much like Imai-Messina’s previous work, The Phone Box at the Edge of the World(which I loved), the story is about coming to terms with loss and moving on.
Also, Laura's books are based on a very beautiful concept and we got to learn about such amazing places in Japan like Phone Booth and the Library of Heartbeats!!

𝐏.𝐒.𝐒 The theme of 'hearts' elegantly thrums through every part of this novel and I learned so many interesting things about the heart and how heartbeats sound in different languages!! 

🔸𝑴𝒚 𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🔸𝑮𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒔 𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈: 4.08 (833)
🔸𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆:Literary Fiction  
🔸𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏: Yes!!
I think the story was rather beautifully told. This book is heart-affirming, heart-warming, and heart-wrenching, all the hearts.

🔸 𝑭𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝑸𝒖𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔:

"Everything should start, he thought, by observing things from where they are."

"We have to understand as many creatures as we can, even the ones that are most different from us, if we want to understand ourselves"

"Having no memory made people more determined and capable."

"Shūichi owed her so much. Above all, he owed her the work that coloured his days: his career as an illustrator. His mother had known to value his wide-open gaze that, ever since he was a boy, saw cats as secret messengers, windows as magical portals and insects that joyfully came out in summer as invaders from other planets. She had believed in him even when nothing suggested he deserved it.
Since her passing, something in Shūichi had been extinguished. He wouldn’t have been able to put it into words, but another knot in the rope that kept him tied to the world had come loose."

"His strongest memory of her, though, was the faith she had in everyone. If ever she couldn’t find positive qualities, she would invent them. Ever since he was young, she had shown Shūichi that there was always a way to love people. She didn’t ignore their faults, but she didn’t load herself up with the weight of nasty words either. ‘Imagine how much they already suffer just by being with themselves!’ she’d say. Even commenting on the most atrocious crimes, his mother explained that it was possible to put someone in prison without having to hate them. It was a relief for Shūichi to discover that he could respect people who made mistakes too.
This, more than anything else she said, had profoundly influenced him."

"It’s different for children. They find meaning while they’re doing things, not before or after."

"The world is big, Shūichi, travel! Look how much space there is on the planet! Remember that when a place is too small for you, you can always leave. Leaving doesn’t have to be a bad thing."

"Don’t judge what you don’t know,"

"In the same way, every authentic feeling had to start and end with itself: joy had to be independent from the world’s response; happiness couldn’t depend on anyone else.
Everything, essentially, was in seeking outside what was already inside.
The first step, however, was the most complicated: understanding what we have inside."

"But even if you can’t remember it, it’s OK.’
Some things are nice to remember forever."

"If you’re going to do something, you have to do it properly."

"To turn down the volume of the world: put in earphones."

"To make things less important: don’t give them names (don’t name the chair or the clock, or the boy in your class)."

"To see nothing: stare at a light bulb (only for a few seconds until everything becomes a big yellow spot)."

"He realised this was how you know you care about someone: when you see them where they aren’t."

"Over the years, he had learned that the real joy of things resided in not revealing them, and feeling happy just because you know they’re true."

"But we’re not all capable of trust; trust is a precious thing."

"There are certain things you only do if someone tells you not to."

"Love is never alone. Fear is always right beside it."

"Love is precisely that risk."

"This was the problem with adults: they weren’t sincere; they needed to tell lies. Because no one can always be right. And anyone who’s fixated on being right needs to lie."

"the older boy’s grandma said you shouldn’t mix up the kingdoms. Things in the sea should stay in the sea, and things on the land should stay on the land; including things like plastic and paper."

"If you don’t think you can improve a person’s life, it’s not fair to place yourself next to them."

"falling in love can only happen in silence and without caution."

"that people had things but not the words to say them. The words might have existed, but nobody could find them when they needed them."

"So, it’s true, you can die from love. You can die from a broken heart."

"The truth is that we never have an absolute value. Nothing and no one has an absolute value. We are who we are thanks to the names we are called in the world, the roles we carve out for ourselves in the lives of others whispered Shūichi."

"When we cry, we save ourselves a little."

"TO BE HAPPY, FIRST OF all you need to imagine being happy."

"The end doesn’t care how things start,’ Sayaka wrote. Faith is the only thing that makes a difference: if you believe in happiness enough to imagine it, eventually it will come."

"that two solitudes can become a companionship. That the world, when seen through two pairs of eyes, can take on colour."