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sameaton23 's review for:
My Heart and Other Black Holes
by Jasmine Warga
Oh contemporary. You’ll always have a special place in my heart, and this book will have its own little special spot within that place. This is I think the 4th or 5th book that I’ve read about suicide this year alone. Call it a trend or what have you, but I’m gonna save it for a later discussion this week. But after reading so many books about suicide, I thought this one was just gonna be the same story just different circumstances. But it turned out to be quite different and didn’t end up being so terribly sad in the end like I had expected it to.
One trend that I’ve been noticing within books that deal with the topic of suicide is the involvement of the internet. This is the second book I’ve read where there is a suicide forum where people can find partners or find support for their suicide decision. Once I read this within the book, I thought it was going to be the same exact story. But it quickly departed from the internet and became more personal between the two characters. The reasons for Aysel and Roman to commit suicide are different, but run along the same lines: they feel incredibly sad and they feel like they’ve done something wrong to their families.
There were times when I felt such hope for these characters that I just wanted to slap them silly and make them realize that they have the makings for something great. Thats how invested I was in this book. I ended up reading over 100 pages in one sitting! It had me hooked, it had me hoping. What I liked about this book was the fact that it treated depression and suicide like the real tangible things that they are. And lets be honest, a lot of us have felt some sort of extreme sadness whether it be due to the every day tribulations or the death of a loved one. For Aysel, she describes her depression like a black slug. Something that keeps eating away at her happiness, something that she can’t explain and just keeps tiptoeing around on the back burner. But there was always this tiny little spark there. You just knew that even though these characters came together to die together, but you just hope that they decide to live together instead.
The writing itself had me hooked with all her talking of physics and poetry. However, there were some things that I wished had been more resolved in the end. Aysel’s reason for wanting to end her life is all tied to her father who committed a horrible crime. You never truly learn the circumstances behind the crime until you’re about 10-15 pages away from the end of the book. I kept waiting for this big resolution and while there was some resolution, I was hoping for just a little bit more. I’m hoping for some sort of novella or something to see where the characters are now, whether they’re happy, and if there was some of the resolution that I was looking for.
Depression and suicide are a tough subject and I think its something that needs to be talked about because it is a subject that can have a tendency to get pushed under the rug. This book broke my heart into a million pieces. This book isn’t the swoony do they kiss in the end type of book. This is the type of book where you learn something about life and maybe something about yourself.
One trend that I’ve been noticing within books that deal with the topic of suicide is the involvement of the internet. This is the second book I’ve read where there is a suicide forum where people can find partners or find support for their suicide decision. Once I read this within the book, I thought it was going to be the same exact story. But it quickly departed from the internet and became more personal between the two characters. The reasons for Aysel and Roman to commit suicide are different, but run along the same lines: they feel incredibly sad and they feel like they’ve done something wrong to their families.
There were times when I felt such hope for these characters that I just wanted to slap them silly and make them realize that they have the makings for something great. Thats how invested I was in this book. I ended up reading over 100 pages in one sitting! It had me hooked, it had me hoping. What I liked about this book was the fact that it treated depression and suicide like the real tangible things that they are. And lets be honest, a lot of us have felt some sort of extreme sadness whether it be due to the every day tribulations or the death of a loved one. For Aysel, she describes her depression like a black slug. Something that keeps eating away at her happiness, something that she can’t explain and just keeps tiptoeing around on the back burner. But there was always this tiny little spark there. You just knew that even though these characters came together to die together, but you just hope that they decide to live together instead.
The writing itself had me hooked with all her talking of physics and poetry. However, there were some things that I wished had been more resolved in the end. Aysel’s reason for wanting to end her life is all tied to her father who committed a horrible crime. You never truly learn the circumstances behind the crime until you’re about 10-15 pages away from the end of the book. I kept waiting for this big resolution and while there was some resolution, I was hoping for just a little bit more. I’m hoping for some sort of novella or something to see where the characters are now, whether they’re happy, and if there was some of the resolution that I was looking for.
Depression and suicide are a tough subject and I think its something that needs to be talked about because it is a subject that can have a tendency to get pushed under the rug. This book broke my heart into a million pieces. This book isn’t the swoony do they kiss in the end type of book. This is the type of book where you learn something about life and maybe something about yourself.