Reading Skywards – Your Friendly Bookshelf

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BOOK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 2023
Format:  Hardcover, Paperback, audiobook, and ebook
Print length ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
Genre:  Literary Fiction

MY PERSONAL OPINION OF “SHARK HEART”

This book has been on my TBR since I heard about it in a Book Podcast I listened. The premise totally intrigued me; the humans evolving into animals as part of the plot and centering the whole story in love was very interesting to me. While walking in the library, I saw the book and borrowed it.

As you may know by now, I am a slow reader; every book takes about 4-6 days (and that is a fast book), some books can take up to 10 days to read. I read this book in 3 days!. I cannot put the book down until the last page.

This was a 5-star read for me. It was everything I looked for in a book. Intriguing plot (the whole human changing to animal part), the deep feelings (love in this case), and artfully crafted writing, which was poetic at times. The pace was incredible, with small paragraphs sometimes being the whole page, but that was all it needed to land me where the story was going.

The main character Wren, is a character who will remain in my mind for a very long time. She was strong and weak, and naive but careful, full of hope and realism at the same time. All other characters were masterfully crafted to be part of his wonderful story of love, resilience, resoluteness, and hope.

Oh, what a beautiful, hopeful, innovative, loving book.

PREMISE OF THE BOOK AS FOUND IN AMAZON / GOODREADS:

For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He will retain most of his consciousness, memories, and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist’s heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams.

At first, Wren internally resists her husband’s fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis changes? Then, a glimpse of Lewis’s developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with her college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds. Woven throughout this “heart-wringing” (Adam Roberts, internationally bestselling author of Salt) novel is the story of Wren’s mother, Angela, who becomes pregnant with Wren at fifteen in an abusive relationship amidst her parents’ crumbling marriage. In the present, all of Wren’s grief eventually collides, and she is forced to make an impossible choice.

MY RATING: 5.0

QUOTES FROM THE BOOK

“He was an aimless kite in search of a string to ground him to the world, but instead, he’d found Wren, a great, strong wind who’d supported his exploration of the sky”

“In the rare hopeful hour, I tell myself this darkness has a purpose: to help me recognize light if I ever find it again.” 

“Wren no longer sees life as a long, linear ladder with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, she considers how life is like a spiraling trail up a mountain. Each circling lap represents a learning cycle, the same lesson at a slightly higher elevation. Wren realizes she likes to rest as much as she likes to climb. She begins to enjoy the view.” 

“It was their duty, he’d say, to deliver the message: Faith lived in the darkest rooms.” 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily Habeck holds a BFA in Theater from Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts and master’s degrees from Vanderbilt Divinity School and Vanderbilt’s Peabody College. Her bestselling debut novel, Shark Heart: A Love Story, was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, a Book of the Month selection, a finalist for Book of the Year, and a Goodreads choice award nominee. In 2024, Shark Heart was also shortlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award and the Brooklyn Library Book Prize. Emily is from Ardmore, Oklahoma.

Bibliography:

• Shark Heart