Book Description Review ADVANCE PRAISE FOR UK EDITION OF ‘ONLY LOVE WILL BREAK YOUR HEART’:*Nominated for the 2019 Carnegie Medal**Longlisted for the National Book Awards*”A brilliant and moving portrayal of how loss can devastate a family, and the impact one person’s absence has on those who are left behind. It also deals with toxic love and consent in a smart, deft manner without ever feeling heavy handed. It’s fantastic.” – Louise O’Neill, author of Asking for It (2017 Printz Award) and Only Ever Yours, in The Irish Telegraph”Another author with a talent for connecting with teenage readers is Katherine Webber. Japanese-American Reiko navigates love and grief amid the claustrophobia of family expectations and peer pressure in Only Love Can Break Your Heart, set in the California desert. It’s familiar emotional territory for contemporary young adult fiction but Webber’s complex, nuanced protagonist feels real and is memorable.” – The Guardian”Get your hands on Only Love Can Break Your Heart this summer and treat your soul to stunning descriptions of the desert, a star-bright voice, and a gloriously tangled story of healing, family, grief, and love – not with a boy, but with a place, and with yourself.”– Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of the Bone Season series”Japanese-American Reiko is dealing with grief, family, first love and peer pressure in Webber’s second contemporary YA outing. She has a real talent for creating nuanced teenage characters and I loved the evocative desert backdrop.” – The Bookseller Read more About the Author Katherine Webber is originally from California but currently lives in London. She has also lived and worked in Hong Kong, Maui, and Atlanta. She loves an adventure, whether it is found in a book or in real life. Travel, books, and eating out are her favorite indulgences. Her debut YA novel Wing Jones/The Heartbeats of Wing Jones is published by Walker Books in the UK and Penguin Random House/Delacorte in the US. Katherine also writes the young fiction series Sam Wu Is Not Afraid as Katie Tsang with her husband, Kevin Tsang. Read more Customers Review: My YouTuber that I follow, she recommended this book to read. She said that this book was a great book, when she was reading this book, her heart was broken. I got this book and she was right.It felt like I was in a break up.
This is not only a great story about love, but there is insight about relationships and self-reflection. It was a little different and I LOVED it!
Loved the characters and feel like most young women can relate to parts of the story.
YA, very nice
I didn’t have time to read it yet, but it came in great shape, so I’m happy with it so far
Teenager Reiko lives in California with her American mother, Japanese father and younger brother Koji. She also has a relationship with her deceased sister Mika whom only she can see. She is one of the popular girls at school along with her friends Andrea (Dre) and Libby.She has a love for the desert and likes to climb and watch the sun rise and fall. It is on one of her climbs in the desert that she meets Seth, although he goes to the same school and attends some of the same classes, she’s just never noticed him before. Whilst at school Reiko finds that she has to act like someone she isn’t, be one of the ‘in-crowd’ but around Seth, she suddenly feels like she can be herself, there is a real connection between the two.With the summer holidays upon them before they start their last year at school, Reiko and Seth find that they are spending more and more time together. They can be free when it is just the two of them but they are both heading down different paths. As the holiday’s come to an end will their love survive or is it time to head off on their own journeys?Only Love Can Break Your Heart is a powerful YA novel that deals with grief, friendship, toxic relationships, family life and the coming of age. I really loved both Reiko and Seth’s characters they were both lost souls for different reasons, both trying to find their place in the world and coming to terms with events that happened to them in their past.The story begins with a real tear-jerker of a chapter. Reiko and her sister are getting up early to watch the sunrise together, they laugh and joke together, then we learn that Mika isn’t really there as she died a couple of years ago but Reiko can’t let go of her.I adored the book and the connection that Reiko and Seth had, especially as they were from very different backgrounds and lifestyles, yet they fitted together perfectly. It was enjoyable to watch them both grow and to understand the world around them better. There were times when I was a little shocked at their actions and the way they were with one another or their behaviour but this made the book more realistic to me.Overall it is an adorable book which I enjoyed from cover to cover and I was glad their story ended the way it did.Book Reviewed on Whispering Stories Book Blog*I received a free copy of this book, which I voluntarily reviewed |
11 reviews