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A review by bookstashread
Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habeck
2.0
Not for me.
Part 1: You start right off in the middle of this love story between Wren and Lewis. Wren is described as being more of a pragmatist (in finance..) and Lewis is more of a dreamer (drama teacher..). Lewis starts to notice some strange symptoms and sees a doctor to find out he’s slowly mutating into a great white shark and will essentially lose himself to this “illness”. This takes over the first half of the book with their relationship having to adjust to his symptoms.
I’m going to try not to spoil this royally - but stop reading here if you don’t want to know anything else.
Part 2: Now you have the perspective of Wren’s mom who was essentially in an abusive relationship as a teen when she got pregnant with Wren. She also ends up developing a mutation of sorts.
Part 3: Back to Wren who is now pregnant with Lewis’ child and she lives happily ever after.
This book was far too abstract for me. I just couldn’t get over certain elements and then couldn’t connect with any of the characters because of it… like I feel we were told Lewis and Wren were in love, and they said they loved eachother but I didn’t buy it…most parts were just so strange to me… like the two sharks coexisting and communicating in the ocean… the “tiny pregnant women” who was giving birth to birds?? One positive thing I’ll say is the language was quite lyrical and poetic, I listened to the audiobook and enjoyed this format - I’m not surprised to learn the author is in theatre.
I just kept trying to bring reason into this book - like maybe these animal mutations are a symbol of dementia? Or other diseases that take our loved ones from us and we have to watch them change in front of our eyes? I’m not even sure if that’s the intent but the mutations were so ridiculous I quite honestly couldn’t get past it. Again, was just not for me.
Part 1: You start right off in the middle of this love story between Wren and Lewis. Wren is described as being more of a pragmatist (in finance..) and Lewis is more of a dreamer (drama teacher..). Lewis starts to notice some strange symptoms and sees a doctor to find out he’s slowly mutating into a great white shark and will essentially lose himself to this “illness”. This takes over the first half of the book with their relationship having to adjust to his symptoms.
I’m going to try not to spoil this royally - but stop reading here if you don’t want to know anything else.
Part 2: Now you have the perspective of Wren’s mom who was essentially in an abusive relationship as a teen when she got pregnant with Wren. She also ends up developing a mutation of sorts.
Part 3: Back to Wren who is now pregnant with Lewis’ child and she lives happily ever after.
This book was far too abstract for me. I just couldn’t get over certain elements and then couldn’t connect with any of the characters because of it… like I feel we were told Lewis and Wren were in love, and they said they loved eachother but I didn’t buy it…most parts were just so strange to me… like the two sharks coexisting and communicating in the ocean… the “tiny pregnant women” who was giving birth to birds?? One positive thing I’ll say is the language was quite lyrical and poetic, I listened to the audiobook and enjoyed this format - I’m not surprised to learn the author is in theatre.
I just kept trying to bring reason into this book - like maybe these animal mutations are a symbol of dementia? Or other diseases that take our loved ones from us and we have to watch them change in front of our eyes? I’m not even sure if that’s the intent but the mutations were so ridiculous I quite honestly couldn’t get past it. Again, was just not for me.