'Heartbreak does not seem to be a brand of grief we respect. And so we are left in the middle of the ocean, floating in a dinghy with no anchor, while the world waits for us to be okay again.'
Every single one of us has had a broken heart. We can all remember the sights, the music playing, the food we ate when we had our hearts broken. The three characters central to the book, Claire, Patrick and Ana all share the same experience of having their hearts broken. Stephens has changed the names of the people she interviewed for Heartsick- three stories about love and loss, and what happens in between, and though most of the narrative is based on true stories relayed to Stephens, there is some embellishment of events and characters, admitted by the author herself.
We all have a story of love gone wrong that we could turn into a book chapter. Jessie Stephens, a Sydney based author, has written her book as an anthology on heartbreak. The chapters are episodic, with every third chapter being the continuation of one of the character’s stories.
Each of their stories are quite different. There’s Claire, having just returned from London - but what is wrong with her partner Maggie? There’s Ana, a married mum in her 40's having an affair, as well as Patrick a young man at uni, who falls in love with Caitlin - but does she love him the same way he loves her?
I really loved this book. It was beautifully written, honest, raw and powerful. The very last chapter named ‘On Romantic Rejection’ is a personal reflection written by the author herself.
I devoured Heartsick in just a few days. I could not put it down. I became so invested in the individual characters and was cheering them on, cringing at their actions and nodding and smiling as I could see myself in some of the situations.
Heartsick is available both as an eBook and audio book on BorrowBox. Its classification as “non-fiction” is a bit of a murky one as there is some cross over between the real world and Stephens' poetic licence.
Susannah
Format
eBooks
Subject
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