My Heart and Other Blackholes

Author: Jasmine Warga

Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary.

Publisher: Harper Collins/Blazer + Bray

Year: 2015

Ranking: 4 / 5

 

 Synopsis

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 is only one problem: she is not sure she has the courage to do it alone. However, 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. However, 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 and 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.

The Author

Jamine Warga lives and writes in a small town that is a few miles outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. MY HEART AND OTHER BLACK HOLES is her first novel and. Her second novel, which is currently untitled, will most likely be published in 2016.

She likes Animals (of all sorts), especially her cat, Salvador, and her puppy, Scout. Surrealist sketches. Iced coffee. The night sky. Old swing sets. Music. Rainy mornings. She does not like talking about things she dislike.

Personal Experience with This Book

I added this book to my TBR because Jessethereader spoke about it in such an incredible way I got interested to know why he expressed so much love to this book. Therefore, I decided to read it for some time but I had not been able until about two weeks ago.

The story is good and, I really liked the idea that the author has to delve into this subject in a somewhat different way than I have read it. It plays a very serious issue, suicide; and why there are people who take it as their choice. I think the author handles the subject in a very good way because as a reader you come to feel for the characters - with Aysel it cost me more to connect - without feeling shame or pity for them.

As for Aysel I can say, it took a lot of work to understand her behaviour. By the way she behaves, one could tell at a glance "this girl wants to die" but her thoughts are very confusing. For me it was like depending on her mood she decide whether it was good or not and although she tried to convince herself that if she wanted to die, left much to be desired. And, that was even before she came to feel love for Roman. Roman, on the other hand, is an amazing character. The way this guy expresses his anguish feels so real you really want him to find that somehow it’s worth living.

These two as a couple are very compatible. They are not that kind of a cute and romantic couple. They do not make you feel butterflies in the stomach by their interactions; but they feel very comfortable with each other and that makes it real. Just like when you are in a long time relationship or when you know, the person in such a profound way that you feel you could tell them anything. It feels that way with these two. The way that they develop their relationship feels so good that helps a lot to feel more real the situation presented by the author, and when interacting with Roman, is when I could get to understand Aysel.

The narrative of the story is quite simple. It is told from Aysel’s perspective and you can see how they pass the days left until April 7, the day she and Roman will commit suicide. Since it is a relatively short book and is written in a way that does not make you feel overwhelmed when you read it; it took two days to read it. Once I started the second half I could not stop until I finished it.

I think it was a good book and I recommend it if you like to read books with such issues. What I like most was the ending, though somewhat predictable is worthy and leaves much so that the reader is satisfied with what he read.