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A review by samanthaardenlockheart
Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland
5.0
There may be spoilers in this review. Proceed with caution. ♥️
Now, back in September or October of 2022, I watched this movie. I was not really into reading books then, but this movie stayed with me, and when I found out it was originally written as a book, I knew I had to read it as soon as possible! And I truly am so glad that I did.
This beautifully written story is about two high school students named Henry Page and Grace Town. Henry is a boy who has not had much interesting happening to him because he is very reserved, shy, and introverted. All of that changes when he meets Grace, however. Very quickly, they form a unique and joy-filled friendship with inside jokes, studying sessions, and deep conversations about the universe. All of this meaningful time spent together results in Henry developing significant feelings for Grace in so many different ways. He has never felt so connected to someone before, or so utterly enraptured by someone like her, in every shade that she was. She is beautiful to him in a way that transcends everything he ever thought he knew about relationships or falling in love.
Yet Grace Town has secrets—a side of her that she deliberately keeps from him. Henry Page grows desperate to figure out who she really is because while she is his best friend, so many things about her are confusing and elusive. After a minor incident that triggered some very difficult emotions in her, Grace confesses that she had been in a car crash a few months before meeting Henry. The most tragic part was that her boyfriend actually died because of the accident. His name was Dominic Sawyer, and they had pretty much been in a relationship for eight years since they were both nine years old. For Grace, it is understandable that this was a cosmic loss. When Dom died, it was as if Grace died with him, too. He was everything to her, and she was even going to end up marrying him. Having to cope with this and simultaneously deal with Henry’s feelings toward her only made everything much more complicated. Grace quickly began to feel as though he wasn’t truly seeing her, but the girl that she used to be before she lost the love of her life.
Grace Town will always love Dominic Sawyer, and Henry Page will always love Grace Town. I feel in my heart that love sometimes can be beautiful in every part that it is, including the most heartbreaking, world-shattering pangs of agony one experiences when they are reminded of the one person in the world they love, but no longer can have. People like that remain a part of us no matter how much time goes by. You can feel them everywhere. And sometimes, that is what keeps them alive. Henry and Grace may not end up together in the end, yet that is still beautiful—maybe even more so than happy romantic endings, because they both understand what it’s like to lose someone they wish they could be with. Grace can not be with Dom anymore because he is gone and never come back. Henry can not be with Grace because she can not love him in the way he deserves, and he learns to accept that even though it hurts. So much more could be said about their relationship, but this all summarizes it very well.
On a personal note, this book has taught me the very intense experience that is love, and loss. I am still in the middle of going through a breakup that changed so much about how I, too, felt about love. Sometimes when you love someone, they stay with you even if they are out of your life or passed away. Maybe you have to leave relationships even if you are with someone you love, or maybe the time is still wrong. I know he will never read this, but if my ex-boyfriend somehow makes it to this specific Goodreads review, I hope he knows I am always going to love him. A part of him is always going to exist in my heart, and that will never go away. That is because he was my first true love; he was the first guy I actually was able to be myself around and tell my secrets without him judging me. We had perfect and imperfect moments together, yet I felt in my heart that we wouldn’t last, and every time I had those thoughts, I started to feel more pain in the relationship than happiness. Our relationship was long-distance, and because of that, it was filled with so much uncertainty. It was not going how I thought it would, and we both started to realize that maybe it would not work out in the long term. The love we shared was young and somewhat difficult at times, yet I learned so much from it that I am so grateful I was in his life, even if it was only for two and a half months. I said it before but I will say it again: if he is reading this, I hope he knows he was a blessing in my life. I wish things could have turned out differently, but just because we had to separate doesn’t mean our relationship was a failure or that our love was meaningless. In fact, just the opposite. Maybe we will meet again in the future, or in another life. Or maybe this really was it. Whatever might happen in my life, this book has reminded me, that this pain is not a feeling I am experiencing alone. While they might be fictional, Henry Page and Grace Town know exactly how I’m feeling, and it makes the whole experience of having to leave someone you love a whole lot less isolating. Just because Grace can’t love Henry does not mean she is a terrible person.
“Space is the best cure for sadness that I know.” “Feeling insignificant isn’t exactly a great cure for unhappiness.” “Hell yeah it is. When I look up into the night sky, I remember that I’m nothing but the ashes of long-dead stars. A human being is a collection of atoms that comes together into an ordered pattern for a brief period of time and then falls apart again. I find comfort in my smallness.” “I don’t think you’re on the same page as the rest of humanity, Town. You’re supposed to be terrified of oblivion, same as the rest of us.” “The best thing the universe ever gave us is that we’ll all be forgotten.”
“No one came to answer, so I lifted the window, hauled myself inside, and fell asleep, alone and fully clothed on Murray’s bed, thinking of Grace Town and how, if people really were assembled from pieces of the universe, her soul was made of stardust and chaos.”
“Because it seems like a lot of hassle, liking someone. Your brain runs hot, the cogs inside your mind jarring together until all the oil of your thoughts is burned away. The fire spreads to your chest, where it chars your lungs and turns your heart to embers. And right when you think the flames have burned away everything but your skeleton, the spark skips from your bones to immolate not only your flesh, but your entire life.”
“I sprang off the bed and went over to her and the cabinet, which I’d been filling with various treasures since I was in elementary school. “Grakov Town, you filthy casual. It’s a cabinet of curiosities. The bowls here are my favorite. I read about this technique called Kintsukuroi in an art book in middle school. Have you heard of it?” Grace shook her head. “So basically it’s this old-school Japanese art form where they mend broken pottery with seams of gold. Like, they glue all the shattered pieces back together, and when it’s done, it’s covered in these webs of gold veins. They do it because they believe that some things are more beautiful when they’ve been broken.”
“I spun around to find her staring at me from the door frame, Dom’s shirt still crumpled up in my shaking fingers. Looking at her then, it was easy to understand that she wasn’t of the corporeal realm. Her skin was as translucent as perfumed paper, and her blond hair fell in ashen curtains to settle blunt and dead about her shoulders. There were whispers of bruises beneath the skin of her eyes, like she cried so much it made her bleed. Grace was a lost soul, a ghost adrift, the human embodiment of secondhand smoke.”
“She was set alight, shining, the stars that died to give her all the atoms that made her glowing from beyond the grave. I’d never seen anything so excruciatingly, heartbreakingly beautiful.”
“Grace looked at me, tears in her eyes. And then the world imploded. It was like she split open, finally, and let the pain pour out. She was crying, bawling, these huge, violent sobs rolling over and over her, almost too much for her body to handle. She collapsed against me, her full weight in my arms, and I swear I could feel her grief radiating outward. I breathed it in with each breath until the pressure of it leaked out of her.”
“And all the while I loved her, just as she loved him. In secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
Those were some of my favourite quotes from this book. As you can see, “Our Chemical Hearts” completely wrecked my heart in the most beautiful way. This story will definitely stay with me for a very long time. ♥️
Now, back in September or October of 2022, I watched this movie. I was not really into reading books then, but this movie stayed with me, and when I found out it was originally written as a book, I knew I had to read it as soon as possible! And I truly am so glad that I did.
This beautifully written story is about two high school students named Henry Page and Grace Town. Henry is a boy who has not had much interesting happening to him because he is very reserved, shy, and introverted. All of that changes when he meets Grace, however. Very quickly, they form a unique and joy-filled friendship with inside jokes, studying sessions, and deep conversations about the universe. All of this meaningful time spent together results in Henry developing significant feelings for Grace in so many different ways. He has never felt so connected to someone before, or so utterly enraptured by someone like her, in every shade that she was. She is beautiful to him in a way that transcends everything he ever thought he knew about relationships or falling in love.
Yet Grace Town has secrets—a side of her that she deliberately keeps from him. Henry Page grows desperate to figure out who she really is because while she is his best friend, so many things about her are confusing and elusive. After a minor incident that triggered some very difficult emotions in her, Grace confesses that she had been in a car crash a few months before meeting Henry. The most tragic part was that her boyfriend actually died because of the accident. His name was Dominic Sawyer, and they had pretty much been in a relationship for eight years since they were both nine years old. For Grace, it is understandable that this was a cosmic loss. When Dom died, it was as if Grace died with him, too. He was everything to her, and she was even going to end up marrying him. Having to cope with this and simultaneously deal with Henry’s feelings toward her only made everything much more complicated. Grace quickly began to feel as though he wasn’t truly seeing her, but the girl that she used to be before she lost the love of her life.
Grace Town will always love Dominic Sawyer, and Henry Page will always love Grace Town. I feel in my heart that love sometimes can be beautiful in every part that it is, including the most heartbreaking, world-shattering pangs of agony one experiences when they are reminded of the one person in the world they love, but no longer can have. People like that remain a part of us no matter how much time goes by. You can feel them everywhere. And sometimes, that is what keeps them alive. Henry and Grace may not end up together in the end, yet that is still beautiful—maybe even more so than happy romantic endings, because they both understand what it’s like to lose someone they wish they could be with. Grace can not be with Dom anymore because he is gone and never come back. Henry can not be with Grace because she can not love him in the way he deserves, and he learns to accept that even though it hurts. So much more could be said about their relationship, but this all summarizes it very well.
On a personal note, this book has taught me the very intense experience that is love, and loss. I am still in the middle of going through a breakup that changed so much about how I, too, felt about love. Sometimes when you love someone, they stay with you even if they are out of your life or passed away. Maybe you have to leave relationships even if you are with someone you love, or maybe the time is still wrong. I know he will never read this, but if my ex-boyfriend somehow makes it to this specific Goodreads review, I hope he knows I am always going to love him. A part of him is always going to exist in my heart, and that will never go away. That is because he was my first true love; he was the first guy I actually was able to be myself around and tell my secrets without him judging me. We had perfect and imperfect moments together, yet I felt in my heart that we wouldn’t last, and every time I had those thoughts, I started to feel more pain in the relationship than happiness. Our relationship was long-distance, and because of that, it was filled with so much uncertainty. It was not going how I thought it would, and we both started to realize that maybe it would not work out in the long term. The love we shared was young and somewhat difficult at times, yet I learned so much from it that I am so grateful I was in his life, even if it was only for two and a half months. I said it before but I will say it again: if he is reading this, I hope he knows he was a blessing in my life. I wish things could have turned out differently, but just because we had to separate doesn’t mean our relationship was a failure or that our love was meaningless. In fact, just the opposite. Maybe we will meet again in the future, or in another life. Or maybe this really was it. Whatever might happen in my life, this book has reminded me, that this pain is not a feeling I am experiencing alone. While they might be fictional, Henry Page and Grace Town know exactly how I’m feeling, and it makes the whole experience of having to leave someone you love a whole lot less isolating. Just because Grace can’t love Henry does not mean she is a terrible person.
“Space is the best cure for sadness that I know.” “Feeling insignificant isn’t exactly a great cure for unhappiness.” “Hell yeah it is. When I look up into the night sky, I remember that I’m nothing but the ashes of long-dead stars. A human being is a collection of atoms that comes together into an ordered pattern for a brief period of time and then falls apart again. I find comfort in my smallness.” “I don’t think you’re on the same page as the rest of humanity, Town. You’re supposed to be terrified of oblivion, same as the rest of us.” “The best thing the universe ever gave us is that we’ll all be forgotten.”
“No one came to answer, so I lifted the window, hauled myself inside, and fell asleep, alone and fully clothed on Murray’s bed, thinking of Grace Town and how, if people really were assembled from pieces of the universe, her soul was made of stardust and chaos.”
“Because it seems like a lot of hassle, liking someone. Your brain runs hot, the cogs inside your mind jarring together until all the oil of your thoughts is burned away. The fire spreads to your chest, where it chars your lungs and turns your heart to embers. And right when you think the flames have burned away everything but your skeleton, the spark skips from your bones to immolate not only your flesh, but your entire life.”
“I sprang off the bed and went over to her and the cabinet, which I’d been filling with various treasures since I was in elementary school. “Grakov Town, you filthy casual. It’s a cabinet of curiosities. The bowls here are my favorite. I read about this technique called Kintsukuroi in an art book in middle school. Have you heard of it?” Grace shook her head. “So basically it’s this old-school Japanese art form where they mend broken pottery with seams of gold. Like, they glue all the shattered pieces back together, and when it’s done, it’s covered in these webs of gold veins. They do it because they believe that some things are more beautiful when they’ve been broken.”
“I spun around to find her staring at me from the door frame, Dom’s shirt still crumpled up in my shaking fingers. Looking at her then, it was easy to understand that she wasn’t of the corporeal realm. Her skin was as translucent as perfumed paper, and her blond hair fell in ashen curtains to settle blunt and dead about her shoulders. There were whispers of bruises beneath the skin of her eyes, like she cried so much it made her bleed. Grace was a lost soul, a ghost adrift, the human embodiment of secondhand smoke.”
“She was set alight, shining, the stars that died to give her all the atoms that made her glowing from beyond the grave. I’d never seen anything so excruciatingly, heartbreakingly beautiful.”
“Grace looked at me, tears in her eyes. And then the world imploded. It was like she split open, finally, and let the pain pour out. She was crying, bawling, these huge, violent sobs rolling over and over her, almost too much for her body to handle. She collapsed against me, her full weight in my arms, and I swear I could feel her grief radiating outward. I breathed it in with each breath until the pressure of it leaked out of her.”
“And all the while I loved her, just as she loved him. In secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
Those were some of my favourite quotes from this book. As you can see, “Our Chemical Hearts” completely wrecked my heart in the most beautiful way. This story will definitely stay with me for a very long time. ♥️