Julie • bujo.books's Reviews > Shark Heart

4.5 stars

Wren and Louis have only been married for less than a year when Louis gets a terrible diagnosis: he's mutating into a great white shark. Told poetically through the eyes of Wren, Louis, and Wren's mother in the past, we see the process of slowly losing someone to something they can't control. 

I read this for a vlog in which I read the best books of 2023 according to the booktubers that have the most similar taste in books as me. Watch it here!

This is a great book and I definitely get why this was in a favorites of the year list. This book tackles its subject matter in a unique way that affects the reader deeply. The writing style feels like poetry in the way it chooses what to focus on, and sometimes is even told in the form of a play script. This may not be for everyone, but I really got along with it. These mutations are common enough that people know about it but may not have been affected by it, very similar to cancer in that and its severity. I really liked that the mutations don't all mean one thing. The different mutations that someone can get are representative of different ways that you can lose someone - terminal illness, degenerative conditions, etc. Seeing these things through metaphor felt like seeing these type of stories through new eyes. It shows how difficult loving someone in this situation is, but that you never lose the love, and how upsetting it is to see people lose themselves and the life they knew to things out of their control. I also thought it was good that it was underlined that abuse is not considered one of these things. 

I was obsessed with the first section of this, following Wren and Louis as his mutation progresses. The way that it flips between parts of their lives and illustrates how Louis is changing is so heartbreaking that it felt like there was a weight on my chest. That one part was easily a 5 star. The other sections, I was less attached to. The second section skipping back to the mother's POV felt like I've read it several times before. It felt like a different book, until it got to the very end and I understood why it was included. I thought if this story was integrated throughout, I might have had a better time with it. Regardless, the last 250 pages I thought were good but not brilliant like the first 150. Also, some of the chapters are like two sentences long. Genuine question: why not just have section breaks?

Overall, I think this is going to go over really well with many people because it's so universally heartbreaking but with love and hope at the center. I'll definitely be recommending this, even if I liked the first section much more than the rest.