Review: My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga

My Heart and Other Black Holes

Pages: 302 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Balzer and Bray, February 2015
Format: hardcover
Buy It Here:
Indigo | Book Depository | Amazon | Goodreads

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—Roman, a teenage boy 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.

My Heart and Other Black Holes is my book club, We Are The Book Thieves’ read of the month. To be honest, I was a little skeptical about this book at first; I hadn’t heard too much about it, but I had seen it around bookstagram, so I was curious but I wasn’t sure I what I was going into.

When I first started this book, I found it to be depressing. Really depressing. I’m pretty sure I was reading with a frown for quite a bit of this book, but it was also intriguing. From page one, I couldn’t put this book down. The two main characters, Aysel and Roman are honestly the cutest when they’re together. They give you that feeling of light fluffyness and I just can’t get enough of it. Whenever they are apart, I feel a little disappointed. The only problem I had with this book was that it went by too fast! I wish that there were more Aysel and Roman moments.

The characters in My Heart and Other Black Holes were pretty lovable overall. When we first meet Aysel, I wasn’t too fond of her because of the way she acted and the way she saw and approached life. However, once she met Roman, aka FrozenRobot, she slowly began to change. The change you see within Aysel is incredible; she slowly becomes a warmer and much likeable person. I really loved her humor too; Aysel never once failed to make me laugh. Roman on the other hand was love at first word for me, if that’s even a thing. He was not the character I was expecting to meet in this book, and his actions really caught me off guard. Despite the fact that he wanted to change his “potential energy into nothingness,” he was the opposite of Aysel – warm and sweet.

I really loved My Heart and Other Black Holes, and it doesn’t matter what genre you like to read, you definitely have to pick this book up! This novel deserves a lot more attention, and it really shows you a lot. Suicide isn’t something you should laugh about. My Heart and Other Black Holes made me feel so many different emotions all at once, and it nearly made me cry near the end, which is a pretty big deal seeing as books never make me feel like this. Please pick up this book if you haven’t. It is a fantastically amazing debut novel.

5/5 stars