A review by manikahemmerixh
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

5.0

This book is a GEM. It's heavy (I've never come so close to crying within the first 50-pages of a novel) but I never wanted to put it down. In fact I was torn between savoring it and devouring each line as quickly as I could. The characters are so alive. How Boyne managed to flesh them all out and give them each such distinctive voices is a mystery to me, but I think that their quirks play a large role in brightening a story that at it's core is pretty serious, and can be quite dark. 

I was endeared to Cyril Avery immediately and wanted so badly to give that lonely child a hug. He's a flawed protagonist (as anyone good human protagonist should be, because all humans have flaws) but his life is a complicated one, and his mistakes multi-faceted. I was always rooting for him. 

When I cried as I read the epilogue I'm not sure if it was for the characters, or because I was so sad that the story was over. Probably a bit of both. I rarely find a book without flaw, but I don't have single criticism for this one.