A review by librarylandlisa
My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga

4.0

Jasmine Warga was a science teacher for a time and also grew up in the Midwest. It is easy to see her influences alive in the main characters of this novel. Aysel (ah-zell) is a sixteen year old girl who is in love with science and that is about it. She is the outcast at school due to not only her Turkish heritage, but because her father committed a crime that rocked her small community. The character and the analogies are my favorite things about Aysel. She describes her depression as a black slug that lives inside of her. She has decided the only thing that will make her life better is to end it. She finds a partner on an online suicide partner website and together they make their plans to end their lives. As they get to know one another better, she beings to question if her life should end or not. She has to decide whether to go through with it or to convince her suicide partner that there are things worth living for. The characters in the book seem like they are deeply hurt but as a reader I want to keep listening to see if they can find a better meaning in life that will keep them from taking their own lives. Aysel reaches a realization that could change everything, but it might not end the way she wants. Will she will end it all, save herself, or manage to save them both?


Quote from Aysel’s on her depression:
“I think of my black slug, slithering around, slurping up my potential energy for joy. I press my hand to my stomach and desperately wish that it didn’t exist, that there was some way to fix me, to fix him” (P.187).