Heart Bones
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Every time Colleen writes something I immediately buy it. I kept getting anxious as the book went on because I was scared I wouldn’t like the ending and that it was going to break my heart, and mostly it did\nbut in a good way, I promise.\n\nI loved Beyah and Samson so so much. Both together and apart. I can only hope to have that kind of love someday, where someone just gets you. Like they’re your person and like they want the best for you even if that’s not them.\n\nI’m not as good with words as she is but this book was beautifully tragic and healing at the same time. I’m never disappointed after reading a CoHo book but by now I expect my heart to be broken and healed again after. Now go read it!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "This may be my new favourite CoHo book. By the end of this book, I was just so done. CoHo got me good, real good. I was a snotty, sniveling mess, hiccuping sobs, totally out of control while my husband slept soundly beside me, totally oblivious to how my heart bones shattered for our heroine, Beyah. I had to take a breather, make a cup of tea before I could even read through the tears, and this was at 2 am. Then, as CoHo expertly does, she put me back together again.\n\nBeyah goes through so much during this book, her upbringing, everything. She had absolutely nothing, but she made the best of a bad hand. She worked hard to better herself, and she did it. When she goes to her dad's for the summer it is like living with a stranger. Even this relationship broke my heart. I knew there was something not being said.\n\nBeyah and Samson were like magnets, they were drawn together and once close, could never separate. This was so much more than the shallow end of a summer fling, they both knew it. It scared them, but the heart wants who the heart wants, even if it takes a journey to get there.\n\nI absolutely LOVED this one. CoHo outdid herself. I don't think my heart bones will recover from this one for a while."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-3 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Love CH, she is a fantastic author but did not care for this novel. I felt it was geared toward a teenage audience. I found myself skimming through paragraphs because nothing was really happening, slow read, and not my favorite of CH. I look forward to her next release!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I was introduced to Colleen Hoover’s books the year I was married (2013). I had already been through a lot of young life and young love, good times and mistakes. Now, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my life, husband, and our darling children Cecilia and Atlas (wink wink), but through Colleen’s writing, she transports me into the lives of the characters she creates. I can not get enough of her writing. I love getting to know each and every character, and I love getting to experience being young again. I get to experience all my firsts again. First loves, first kisses, first fights, first fake comas (haha Verity, oops sorry spoiler alert). She did it again with Heart Bones. I felt everything Beyah felt. Not many authors can do that. Sure you get emotional moments or twists leaving you speechless, but to actually be able to feel what the character is feeling?? Colleen makes it seem effortless to write, although I know that has to be so much further from the truth. I am basically giving Colleen herself a review instead of Heart Bones exclusively but it’s my review so deal with it! Heart Bones is amazing!! Read it! Get to know Beyah and Samson! Feel what they feel!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I am a fan of Colleen Hoover- her books and her. I got this book as soon as it was released and read until I finished. I reread parts of it today so could try to write a review to do justice to this amazing book. For me this is a story of no chance, chances, second chances, surviving , love and loving someone else more than yourself. If you have never read a Colleen Hoover book - read this one. You will then become a fan and want to read all of her books. I have read all but a couple, I didn\'t think I would appreciate the ones I chose not to read. This has been a summer when we all probably thought about things that we might not have before. We had time to reflect on the hardship of others lives, how "fair" does not mean the same to everyone. This book made me think and feel and I know I will reread it many times. Read this book- you will not regret it -that\'s a little pun -'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Stunning. Seriously, just a really beautiful, powerful romance. I had no idea what to expect going into this - and that’s how I’d recommend everyone go into it - so the story unraveled in such an organic, mesmerizing way. From page one, you can tell that there’s an intensity about the book that sets it apart from the rest; a heaviness that gives this love story such WEIGHT. And it truly is a love story. Our heroine goes on her own journey throughout the course of the book, but through it all, there’s that one guy who makes an impact. It’s one of the best books I’ve read all year, hands down, and the kind of story that you’ll want to reread with fresh eyes as soon as you turn the last page.\n\nI’m not going to go into a lot of detail about the plot on this one, because I think you should discover it as you read. I will say that I don’t love summer fling romances, so the appeal here was the writing style - and I’m happy to report that it’s so much more than that. There’s an incredible build in intimacy, a slow burn romance with depth, and a mysterious quality to both our hero and the story as a whole. The book kicks off on a somber note and does have a heavy feel to much of it, but there is also so much wonder and that feeling you only get with young love. It’s new adult romance with a 19-year-old heroine who is just starting to really live. She comes from a troubled background, with many, many triggers in her history, and they appear right away.\n\nMy favorite part about the book? It is so THOUGHT-PROVOKING. Told exclusively from the heroine’s perspective, there are little breadcrumbs along the way that tell us more about the hero. These two seem so different on the surface, but the more they wade into the depths, the more commonalities they discover. At one point, I was so convinced that I knew where the story was heading... but I was completely wrong. And I love that. It kept me engrossed from start to finish, and I ended up devouring it in one sitting. I may have even shooed my husband away a time or two when he tried to interrupt my reading. So, the book is bad for your marriage, good for your heart, and that title will make complete sense once you finish reading. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC (then purchased it for my collection), and am voluntarily leaving a review of this heartbreaking romance.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'It never ceases to amaze me how Colleen Hoover can take words and then create sentences and then build characters and create a story that brings out so many insane levels emotions. This book was nothing that I expected it to be, and I\'m in awe of the brilliance and flow and surprise and emotions. I\'m in love with this story and wish I could read it for the first time over and over again.\n\nBeyah and Samsons story is unlike any other. I may seem crazy saying this after reading it and you\'ll have to read it to understand the irony of this but, everything between them seemed so genuine and real and so deep. I felt it, in my heart bone. There are many many quotes in the book that hit me hard, but this one in particular stood out without really giving anything about the story away -\n\n"I feel like I’m doing this all wrong, but at the same time, it feels like maybe Samson and I are the only people who are doing this right in the whole world."\n\nSuperb job CH, I love everything you write and never want the stories to end.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-2 review-rating', 'review_body': "I have to admire CoHo for keeping her resolve to have the dumbest named characters in all her books. Beyah (sigh) is a 19 year old recent high school graduate whose mother overdosed in their trailer, leaving Beyah homeless. She's pissed about having to stay with her dad for two months until she starts college, but she quickly adapts to the comforts of her new life. Although any athlete who receives a fall sports scholarship would have to report to school long before August, but I guess that would ruin the plot with believability.\n\nBeyah is poor. She likes to bludgeon people with that fact in case they forget. No one's had it as hard as her, ok? No one was ever there for her, ok? Except it seems like her dad was trying and it was Beyah who ignored his attempts to reach out. Perhaps if she'd let him in just a little bit, things would have gotten a lot better in her life.\n\nBeyah meets Samson, who seems sketchy and untrustworthy, and she doesn't want to like him, but he's super good looking so...\nHe won't tell her anything about him, but Beyah somehow knows he's a really good person, so...\nHe's not like other guys (truthful?), he's deep. He watches the sunrise! He often has a look in his eyes like he's thinking deep thoughts!\n\nSamson's big secrets finally come out and Beyah is annoyed that he has to face consequences. The epilogue set four years later is so over-the-top ridiculous that I thought I was reading a fairytale."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': '“I think when you’re the worst of people, finding the worst in others becomes a survival tactic of sorts. You focus heavily on the darkness in people in hopes of masking the true shade of your own darkness. That’s how my mother has spent her entire life. Always seeking the worst in people. Even her own daughter.”\n\nWith my lack of reading time lately, I definitely want to choose books that are top-notch and enjoyable to read. Heart Bones definitely ticked those boxes for me! Colleen’s last two books have felt like a return to her roots, with characters we can’t help but fall in love with. This book felt like a mix between Ugly Love and Hopeless, with damaged characters who were keeping the circumstances of their pasts under wraps. I couldn’t wait to find out what made Samson and Beyah tick and what made them so easily drawn to one another.\n\n“Kindness doesn’t sink as deep into your skin as the damage does. The damage stains your soul so bad, you can’t scrub it off. It stays there forever, and I feel like people can see all my damage just by looking at me.”\n\nI loved the way this story evoked a range of emotions and made me think deeply about the relationships of the characters, as well as the decisions they made. Heart Bones forces readers to reflect on morally ambiguous situations, making it clear the world is not as black and white as it seems. I always appreciate books that show characters rising up to make themselves better despite their circumstances. It was inspiring to witness the growth of Beyah and Samson throughout the novel. I couldn’t get enough of this book and I certainly don’t want to give too much away. Just know, you will feel every word of this one and be underlining numerous great quotes along the way! Colleen’s books are compulsive reads, so you definitely can’t go wrong here!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️\n\n“‘…You can fill your life with nice things, but nice things don’t fill the holes in your soul.’\n\n‘What fills the holes in a soul?’\n\nSamson’s eyes scroll over my face for a few seconds.’Pieces of someone else’s soul.'”\n\nI guess you could say that I’ve been sitting on writing this review. It isn’t that I didn’t love this book. I adored it. I think it’s more about the idea of letting it go when I wanted to hold onto it a bit more. This is my second Colleen Hoover book, the first one being her last book, Regretting You. I know that her popularity comes from her stories such as Verity and It Ends with Us, and I have every intention of reading those stories. For me, Heart Bones, her newest book, along with Regretting You, have shown me the ways in which she pours herself into her storytelling in ways that are nuanced. That nuance makes for reads that impact you straight into your heart asthe secrets of her stories are divulged. And Heart Bones…it is no different.\n\nThe premise of Heart Bones is a young woman on the cusp of change (going off to college) is thrust into her father’s world, a father who can only be considered very absentee. This world is a world of privilege, a world that she did not live in with her mother. There, she meets Samson, the local rich boy. They agree to a summer together before she leaves for college, and they pour themselves into each other. However, as the summer comes to an end, the ability to let go of Samson seems impossible. It is also in that space where the secret of Heart Bones is shown.\n\nWhat I loved most about this book is its elemental message about loving a person. As humans, we need people to “see” us, to seek to understand us without facade, and we oftentimes go through life without being regarded in elemental ways. It’s like we’re apparitions carrying ourselves through life, never fully engaging and becoming solid in the adoration of another. This is the underlying crux of this story. It’s the beauty of it, quite frankly. As Samson and Beyah encounter each other, (and this may sound corny), their souls acknowledge their similarities, and it creates this romance that is less about the physical (these two are slow-burn) and more about the emotional pull between them. This is a book about soulmates acknowledging their existence for the other, and that makes for a romance rife with depth and gravity.\n\nEven more, Hoover pokes and prods at the notion of socio-economic influence. In many ways Samson and Beyah are the same person, yet they exist at odds in terms of wealth. There is a complication to this in the story that illustrates the farce that a person who is wealthy cannot understand a person who is poor. Hoover bridges this idea with that connection. It’s a reminder that money does not soften life experiences. That it’s possible to understand a person even if your past or upbringing or wealth or lack of it is different from your own. As Samson and Beyah realize this notion, they recognize the reflection of each other in the other. Over and over again, their connections draw you into Heart Bones.\n\nAnd nuances of Colleen Hoover’s Heart Bones reside in the way it resonates in your soul even though it isn’t romantic by traditional romance standards. In this book and her last, the $exual relationship between her heroes and heroines are minimized in a way. The story isn’t about that. Instead, Hoover sets to tell stories about the human condition that transcend traditional romantic tropes. This is what has bowled me over about the two stories I’ve read thus far. Heart Bones is a story about learning to love yourself, as you find yourself reflected in another. It’s about recognizing that everyone has a story, and you aren’t alone. It’s about finding that person whose story connects with your own and loving them even through the difficulties of life. These messages roll over you again and again in Heart Bones, that when you’ve turned the last page, your heart feels like it’s grown its own heart bones, and you’re already nostalgic for a story that resonates with you in its basic truths about the human condition."}]