Tuesday, April 7, 2015

REVIEW: My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga




My Heart and Other Black Holes
Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back, and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness.

There’s only one problem: she’s not sure she has the courage to do it alone. But once she discovers a website with a section called Suicide Partners, Aysel’s convinced she’s found her solution: a teen boy with the username FrozenRobot (aka Roman) who’s haunted by a family tragedy is looking for a partner.


Even though Aysel and Roman have nothing in common, they slowly start to fill in each other’s broken lives. But as their suicide pact becomes more concrete, Aysel begins to question whether she really wants to go through with it. Ultimately, she must choose between wanting to die or trying to convince Roman to live so they can discover the potential of their energy together. Except that Roman may not be so easy to convince.




MY THOUGHTS
This was such a beautiful and brilliant book that I easily finished in one night!

Aysel currently lives with her mother and stepfamily in a depression. She has a mediocre job, she feels like her stepfamily doesn't want her there, her mother doesn't seem to care for her, and everyone judges her for what her father did to end up in jail. Aysel wants to commit suicide. She's been constantly planning her death and has been using the website Smooth Passages for ideas. The website has a thing called Suicide Partners where two people partner up and commit suicide together. This has never interested Aysel until a user called FrozenRobot asks for a partner and happens to live nearby. He only asks that they commit suicide on a specific day.

What I really love about this book is how realistic and relatable it is. I love how many books about suicide are coming out! That sounds bad, but suicide is, sadly, a very often occurrence and we need these books! I myself have thought about suicide before, many people have, and books like these do help. This book also showed depression very realistically. I could feel the characters' depression seeping off the pages and I was able to be fully immersed into how they felt and way they would want to end their lives.

This book also has so much beauty in it. Aysel and Roman (FrozenRobert) become close to each other during their time waiting for 'the end' and they eventually tell each other why they decided to do this. Aysel begins to actually care for Roman and her odd friendship actually helps her out of her depression. Even more, she doesn't want Roman to go through with it. It's so beautiful seeing the change in Aysel and seeing her slowly start to recover from her depression.

Also, this book is not a romance. I guess you can say that there is a bit of a romance, but that's not the point of the book. This book is about so much more!


IN CONCLUSION
Really, this book has so many layers within it. It's about depression, but it's also about relationships and family becomes especially important. This book was horribly, beautiful and I strongly recommend this book to anyone!

I hereby give this book
5 Wheels
Meaning: A new favorite!

1 comment :

  1. Great review. This book is on my TBR, so hopefully I’ll be reading it soon. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

    Aj @ Read All The Things!

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