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A review by mhinnen
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
well this is the final book I've read in 2023 and in a year of many hours of reading exceptional books, this is near the top! I laughed. I cried. Yes, that was me on the NJ Parkway ugly crying/laughing with the tenderness with which this book ended. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator, Stephen Hogan embodied the story of Cyril from his birth to the end of life - mostly in Ireland.
Born to a young unwed mother in 1945 who was thrown out of the church, adopted by a family who never considered him a "real" family member, growing up gay in Ireland and falling in love with his best friend, creating a chosen family in Amsterdam, surviving the AIDS crisis and gay bashing in NYC, and crossing paths throughout his life with his biological mother, we experience the fullness of a life lived through the lens of societal and historical fiction. Parts of the story are brutal, many are heartwarming, others are heartbreaking though written with enough humor to keep the reader from despairing while still honoring the realities . . . It's a long book (580+pages) and took me a couple of months to get through but in a way, I was glad to really be part of this journey and make it last.
Born to a young unwed mother in 1945 who was thrown out of the church, adopted by a family who never considered him a "real" family member, growing up gay in Ireland and falling in love with his best friend, creating a chosen family in Amsterdam, surviving the AIDS crisis and gay bashing in NYC, and crossing paths throughout his life with his biological mother, we experience the fullness of a life lived through the lens of societal and historical fiction. Parts of the story are brutal, many are heartwarming, others are heartbreaking though written with enough humor to keep the reader from despairing while still honoring the realities . . . It's a long book (580+pages) and took me a couple of months to get through but in a way, I was glad to really be part of this journey and make it last.