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A review by hissingpotatoes
Heartsong by TJ Klune
5.0
I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Once again, Klune delivers a book that's impossible to put down. Somehow each book is better than the last, even though I gave the previous one a perfect rating and it focused on my favorite character of the series. Klune's words are magnetizing, lyrical, intense. He has a way of repeating phrases at critical times to the point that when they happen, you feel the weight of all the previous moments in the current one.
As the book unfolds, there's a growing ache that tears you apart from the inside. It's so, so blue with flashes of green relief hidden away in memories. The characters you've come to know and love from the first two books are shown here through a fractured mirror, the events between the last book and this one slowly becoming clearer in haunting retrospective. The addition of this narrative and tonal layer, the prolonged distancing from the beloved pack found family dynamics, is a smart choice on Klune's part because it forces you to look at things from a different angle, refreshing the series and making you fall in love with the characters all over again.
The emotional experience of reading this book is turned up to the max then multiplied by two with no compromise on the intensity. It's a constant alternating between joy and laughter from the relationships or heart-in-the-throat tension from the action. This may sound exhausting but it's executed so perfectly that it's exhilarating instead. You feel like you're in Robbie's shoes, experiencing things exactly as he experiences them, and even experiencing what other characters feel and think just as closely because Klune is that good at showing how perceptive Robbie is.
The dialogue is so sharp, whether to make you laugh out loud (Rico's commentary is especially entertaining) or to make you literally gasp at the hurt conveyed or to make you cry from the pure beauty of the love between the pack. The book is long, but there are no wasted words, no extraneous exposition. I never wanted it to end.
This book is ostensibly about a werewolf finding his home and a wolf pack fighting against the forces that want to destroy them. At its core, however, it's about love, no one type overshadowing another: romantic love persevering despite all odds and falling in love twice over; familial love bonds fighting for each other even after mistakes are made; the importance of pack love in standing together or falling apart alone; the limits and conflicts of different types of love and the effort required to make them work; and the contrast of all these with the taint of manipulative love. It may sound trite, but the author shows rather than tells in such a way that the themes connect with the reader on the deepest levels imaginable. The core of this book sings to the core of the reader.
Klune masterfully sets up future plot points and dynamics long before they happen, making the conclusion of those arcs all the more satisfying. His setup for this book started in the first one and for the next book started in the previous one. I'm dying to continue.
You might like this if you like: the Aud Torvingen series by Nicola Griffith; the San Andreas Shifters series by G.L. Carriger
Once again, Klune delivers a book that's impossible to put down. Somehow each book is better than the last, even though I gave the previous one a perfect rating and it focused on my favorite character of the series. Klune's words are magnetizing, lyrical, intense. He has a way of repeating phrases at critical times to the point that when they happen, you feel the weight of all the previous moments in the current one.
As the book unfolds, there's a growing ache that tears you apart from the inside. It's so, so blue with flashes of green relief hidden away in memories. The characters you've come to know and love from the first two books are shown here through a fractured mirror, the events between the last book and this one slowly becoming clearer in haunting retrospective. The addition of this narrative and tonal layer, the prolonged distancing from the beloved pack found family dynamics, is a smart choice on Klune's part because it forces you to look at things from a different angle, refreshing the series and making you fall in love with the characters all over again.
The emotional experience of reading this book is turned up to the max then multiplied by two with no compromise on the intensity. It's a constant alternating between joy and laughter from the relationships or heart-in-the-throat tension from the action. This may sound exhausting but it's executed so perfectly that it's exhilarating instead. You feel like you're in Robbie's shoes, experiencing things exactly as he experiences them, and even experiencing what other characters feel and think just as closely because Klune is that good at showing how perceptive Robbie is.
The dialogue is so sharp, whether to make you laugh out loud (Rico's commentary is especially entertaining) or to make you literally gasp at the hurt conveyed or to make you cry from the pure beauty of the love between the pack. The book is long, but there are no wasted words, no extraneous exposition. I never wanted it to end.
This book is ostensibly about a werewolf finding his home and a wolf pack fighting against the forces that want to destroy them. At its core, however, it's about love, no one type overshadowing another: romantic love persevering despite all odds and falling in love twice over; familial love bonds fighting for each other even after mistakes are made; the importance of pack love in standing together or falling apart alone; the limits and conflicts of different types of love and the effort required to make them work; and the contrast of all these with the taint of manipulative love. It may sound trite, but the author shows rather than tells in such a way that the themes connect with the reader on the deepest levels imaginable. The core of this book sings to the core of the reader.
Klune masterfully sets up future plot points and dynamics long before they happen, making the conclusion of those arcs all the more satisfying. His setup for this book started in the first one and for the next book started in the previous one. I'm dying to continue.
You might like this if you like: the Aud Torvingen series by Nicola Griffith; the San Andreas Shifters series by G.L. Carriger