Yet another signature “Colleen Hoover” book, so beautifully written about personal growth, and discovering (or re-discovering) family, whether they be blood or friends alike.
Liz: I just finished Heart Bones, it was absolute perfection. There is nothing I would change about it. I sure had my doubts when I was in the middle of it, but the beauty of it all emerged.
I imagine that Colleen started the book and got her inspiration with A line from her book. “There’s a saying from Maya Angelou that reminds me of our situation. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time”. My heart bones sure felt this one.
Ashley: It’s sooooo good! I’m currently teaching fourth and second grade math and pre-k reading while trying to sneak pages here and there
Dang homeschool!
Linda: Heart Bones …my latest 5* read recommendations.
Amy: Halfway through Heart Bones and loving it. Typical CH goodness.
Summer: This book was so good she is my #1 fave author!
Stephanie: It’s amazing!!!
Nicci: Read. It’s really good!
Racena: I read it a couple weeks while in quarantine after Colleen was so sweet to send me an ARC because I was sick with Covid. It was absolutely great! As is her soon to be released first ever PR/supernatural romance book Layla. Colleen writes a ghost story as well as Stephen King-if not maybe a tiny bit better!!
But back to Heart Bones. You all will fall fast for Beyah and then you’ll fall again for Samson! Such a great YA read.
Maryse: OMG Racena… LAYLA IS GOING TO ROCK MY WORLD I JUST KNOW IT!! I can’t WAIT!!!
Sweet and heartwarming, but not without its fair share of painful cracks and wounds that have yet to heal over. Emotional scars that have hardened from repeated trauma and loneliness, hopelessly believing nothing could ever get better, and not knowing or even having the desire to know, where to go from here.
I close my eyes and press my face into my hands, trying to decide if my detachment is because of my upbringing or if I was born broken.
I wonder what kind of upbringing is worse for a human. The kind where you’re sheltered and loved to the point that you aren’t aware of how cruel the world can be until it’s too late to acquire the necessary coping skills, or the kind of household I grew up in. The ugliest version of a family, where coping is the only thing you learn.
So what’s it about?
Beyah, a true survivor despite having struggled through a neglected childhood with an addict mother,
“…If you have an out, you need to take it. This life you’ve been living here—it’s not good enough for you.”
is forced to go to live with a father that she barely knows and who was pretty much absent all her life.
My negative feelings toward him come from all the experiences I didn’t have with him. The older I get, the clearer it becomes to me what little effort he’s made to be a part of my life. I sometimes wonder how different I would be had I spent more time with him than Janean.
Would I have still turned out to be the same untrusting, skeptical human I’ve become had I experienced more good times than bad?
When she arrives at his home (a beach house), she realizes that his life with his new wife (and step-daughter) are polar opposites of the way Beyah has lived all her life.
This is so bad. I grew up in a trailer house with a drug addict for a mother, and now I’m about to spend the summer in a beach house with a stepmother who holds a doctorate, which means her offspring is more than likely a spoiled rich girl I’ll have nothing in common with.
I should have stayed in Kentucky.
I don’t people well as it is, but I’m even worse at peopling with people who have money.
Everybody’s just so… happy. Fulfilled. Close.
Resentment and hurt guide her (or misguide her)… in the beginning (and I totally got her!). Though there’s more to the story that she’s about to uncover.
Tentatively, she gets to know her new family, and… eventually, a new brooding (yet popular) friend named Samson that hangs out with them. He appears to be the strong, silent type. And while Samson seems to have lived his “beach house life” like her father’s family, there’s something very remote and pensive and almost… lost about him.
“I saw that thought,” I say quietly.
“What thought?”
“The negative thought you just had.” I bring a finger to the spot between his eyebrows. “It was right here.”
And through that feeling of being lost… they find each other.
“…You can fill your life with nice things, but nice things don’t fill the holes in your soul.”
“What fills the holes in a soul?”
Samson’s eyes scroll over my face for a few seconds. “Pieces of someone else’s soul.”
*swwooooooon* And that’s as far as I’m going with the details. 😉
Sarah:
I was hooked in chapter one. Colleen Hoover is such an incredible author! She paints pictures I didn’t know words could.
Paula: I admit that I only read Colleen Hoover after I’m prepared mind and soul. Most of her books leave me raw.
Yep!!! So true, Sarah and Paula. I’m with you guys.
The beginning will suck you right in, the shock of the moment when we meet the heroine, overwhelming, and her reaction, distressing and yet… also understandable, when you realize how much she’s already been through. And then… acclimating to her new world with her (I JUST LOVED all of that!!). We get to know her so much better, while she gets to know herself… and we grow with her too.
And then there’s a reveal I DID NOT see coming. I knew one was coming… I just didn’t know it was this one. LOL! 🙃
Great read, lots of emotion, and moments that will tug at your heart bones. You’ll see. 😉
4.5 stars! <— Aggghhhh I’m vacillating. Actually it’s probably more like a 4.5 star to 5 star book. I loved it, but I was actually able to put it down here and there. The thing is, I have my HUGE Colleen Hoover favorites (my die-hard love for a few of her other amazing stories that I devoured – or more like they devoured me), so that’s my scale when it comes to her books. She is one of my absolute favorite authors in the world, her storytelling and writing is incredible, and so true to who she is. So much soul. I love her and everyone that hasn’t yet, should go on a Colleen Hoover marathon read and you’ll see!!! 😀
P.S. Thank you to the author’s crew for sending me a review copy!!!
I loved it. It didn’t have the *OOMPH* that kicked my heart’s a$$ like It Ends With Us and Ugly Love, but it was so swoony and the characters so real and flawed and it just flowed well and was just… *sigh*
I love her books.
Me too! I always know I’ll be invested in the story when she writes it. 😉