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A review by laurenparrott
Stay with My Heart by Tashie Bhuiyan
1.0
Thank you to Epic Reads and HarperCollins for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
Stay With My Heart by Tashie Bhuiyan is a story about a found family coming together through a shared love and dream of music; it’s a story filled with topics like grief, depression, and mental illness. From its synopsis, it really sounded like it could be an incredible book for me. But, unfortunately, it fell flat.
I am very much a character-driven person. The plot of a book could be absolutely terrible but so long as the characters are well-developed and realistic, I’m all in. However, the characters in Stay With My Heart felt like very stereotypical one-dimensional characters. They were never really able to leave the tropes/quirks they were assigned, and it made them feel unrealistic. They felt like caricatures. It took me out of the story almost immediately, and it was hard to care about their arcs and outcomes.
I also just really disliked the main female character and couldn’t champion for her.
Another major issue I had with this book was its odd pacing. Certain events or conversations would have a long lead up, and then said event or conversation would be briefly mentioned in one sentence before fully moving on from it. For example, one of the major plot points of this book is the band performing at a music competition and winning it. The band members then spend countless hours of their time and countless chapters of mine rehearsing for this competition. There is even added tension considering the band entered this competition in the first place to best an ex-band member. Then, the competition itself lasts for maybe two anti-climatic chapters before the competition winner is announced within the first sentence of the next chapter. Where is the tension? Why am I just being told what happens and not shown?
I will admit, as a now older adult, it’s common for young adult books to not hit for me the same way they used to. Although, I don’t think that was the issue here. I think this one was just bad…
I’m also just still not over the fact that the main love interest in this book is named Sky Moon.
Thank you again to HarperCollins for an advance copy for my honest review!
Stay With My Heart by Tashie Bhuiyan is a story about a found family coming together through a shared love and dream of music; it’s a story filled with topics like grief, depression, and mental illness. From its synopsis, it really sounded like it could be an incredible book for me. But, unfortunately, it fell flat.
I am very much a character-driven person. The plot of a book could be absolutely terrible but so long as the characters are well-developed and realistic, I’m all in. However, the characters in Stay With My Heart felt like very stereotypical one-dimensional characters. They were never really able to leave the tropes/quirks they were assigned, and it made them feel unrealistic. They felt like caricatures. It took me out of the story almost immediately, and it was hard to care about their arcs and outcomes.
I also just really disliked the main female character and couldn’t champion for her.
Another major issue I had with this book was its odd pacing. Certain events or conversations would have a long lead up, and then said event or conversation would be briefly mentioned in one sentence before fully moving on from it. For example, one of the major plot points of this book is the band performing at a music competition and winning it. The band members then spend countless hours of their time and countless chapters of mine rehearsing for this competition. There is even added tension considering the band entered this competition in the first place to best an ex-band member. Then, the competition itself lasts for maybe two anti-climatic chapters before the competition winner is announced within the first sentence of the next chapter. Where is the tension? Why am I just being told what happens and not shown?
I will admit, as a now older adult, it’s common for young adult books to not hit for me the same way they used to. Although, I don’t think that was the issue here. I think this one was just bad…
I’m also just still not over the fact that the main love interest in this book is named Sky Moon.
Thank you again to HarperCollins for an advance copy for my honest review!