Warning: This discussion contains spoilers.
I'm not planning to write about every book I read this year, but I was excited to start the year with Heart the Lover, by Lily King. I have read most of her books, and I think she is an amazing writer. Perhaps the best indicator of her skill in Heart the Lover is that the book is both a prequel and sequel to her earlier book Writers and Lovers and also works as a stand-alone. It was on many best of 2025 lists--and yet I did not love it. The structure is fine, the writing at the sentence and paragraph level is lovely (see favorite passages below), but some combination of the plot and characters created problems for me.
The plot: The story starts with a college love triangle (love triangles are definitely a thing with King) among three English majors--Casey (the protagonist from Writers and Lovers), ultra-religious Sam, and less stifled Yash. There is a lot of English major talk, which many reviewers loved but I found a bit much. Indeed, the boys give Casey the nickname Jordan after a character in The Great Gatsby and she is called that throughout their relationship (cute or vaguely icky?). Plus the character Sam is so problematic (although scenes with Sam and his family did provide some comic relief), it was obvious that Yash was really the guy for Casey. Soon enough, the story morphs into a love story between Yash and Casey. That affair ends badly, with Yash seeming to choose Sam over Casey and doing it in a particularly heartless way. All of this held my attention and brought up some memories of what it was like to fall in love in college, but it didn't enthrall me.
From there, we jump ahead 20+ years. Casey is married to Silas (one of her lovers from the love triangle in the earlier book) and has two young children. Yash stops in for a visit, the first time they have seen each other in decades--and it's awkward. They talk, but very little is surfaced. Another short leap forward in time, and Casey's son Jack has brain tumors and is in such pain that his body seizes as a means of alleviating the pain. Sam contacts Casey to let her know Yash is dying and she leaves her son to go to Yash. As a plot point, this sets up scenes of secret-sharing, recrimination, and reconciliation--everything they didn't talk about in the earlier visit emerges under the pressure of impending death. All of this is surely essential to what King wants to say about love, connection, and forgiveness. But I could not get past Casey, who up to that point is portrayed as a wonderful mother, leaving her son for any reason really, but particularly for a former lover. She says that Silas convinced her to go, and I can understand why he would want her to resolve some of her old feelings. But did he want her to repeatedly miss flights home? Did Jack want her to go? Oh hell no!! My reaction to Casey's decision rendered me unable to be moved by the closing chapters, which--based on Goodreads comments--left many readers sobbing.
I recognize that caring too much about my own feelings toward a character and being judge-y about bad decisions that serve the author's purposes are not hallmarks of sophisticated reading. Will I change? Maybe I'll try, but I lack full commitment to that goal.
Favorite Passages
He looks scared, like something out there is more menacing than the snow falling faintly, faintly falling on the living and the dead.
I laugh. I'm incapable of understanding his dilemma. It feels completely made up to me. I've noticed that about people who had stable childhoods. They like to create their own problems.
You know how you can remember exactly when and where you read certain books? A great novel, a truly great one, not only captures a particular fictional experience, it alters and intensifies the way you experience your own life while you're reading it. And it preserves it, like a time capsule.
