Title: Shark Heart
Author: Emily Habeck
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books 2023
Genre: Fantasy?
Pages: 416
Rating: 3/5 stars
Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf; Read Around the USA - Texas
Where I Got It: Book of the Month March 2024
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.
I am really not sure how exactly I feel about this book. The writing was beautiful. I was sucked into the story by the prose. I even really loved the different passage structures: short scenes, play scenes, flashbacks, etc. I loved how the mixing up of the plot and timeline really kept me turning the pages to see what happened next. But… and this is a big but, I truly disliked Wren and her entire character. We never really get to truly connect with her and understand her. She is so closed off throughout the book that I don’t even think Lewis understood her. I found her entire story to be so incredibly frustrating. And the entire second section of the book was such a bummer for me. I wanted to spend more time with Lewis and Wren, not her mother. This book is our book discussion fro book club next week. I’m interested to hear what everyone else thought about the book.
Next up on the TBR pile:
