#Review My heart and other black holes by Jasmine Warga

Book: My Heart and other black holes

Author: Jasmine Warga

Publisher: Hodder

Pages: 302

Bought Paperback

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Rating: ✪✪✪ .5

Blurb:

Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back, and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness.

There’s only one problem: she’s not sure she has the courage to do it alone. But once she discovers a website with a section called Suicide Partners, Aysel’s convinced she’s found her solution: a teen boy with the username FrozenRobot (aka Roman) who’s haunted by a family tragedy is looking for a partner. 

Even though Aysel and Roman have nothing in common, they slowly start to fill in each other’s broken lives. But as their suicide pact becomes more concrete, Aysel begins to question whether she really wants to go through with it. Ultimately, she must choose between wanting to die or trying to convince Roman to live so they can discover the potential of their energy together. Except that Roman may not be so easy to convince.

Review

This year in YA a lot of taboo topics are being addressed, particularly suicide and mental illnesses. And for some reason I seem to be drawn to these books. My Heart and other black holes has a different feel to others I have read that covers these types of topics. In this book two young characters want to commit suicide. How they come together too form a suicide pact was interesting. They meet via an online chat room where people can go search for a partner to commit suicide. I found this very disturbing but realistic in this day and age, as I have heard of people making suicide pacts online. 

The journey these characters go though and there reasons behind there individual reasons for committing suicide where heart breaking, especially Roman's. The Story is told VIA a female protagonist called Asyel. I found her voice very quirky and it took me a while to get into her voice and they way she thinks but when I did I was flying. Her interest in Physics plays a big role in her way of thinking though out the book and I found this really interesting and I felt it made her voice different from anything I have read before.

My heart and other black holes hit on a lot of assumptions with regards to mental health,  that it's not just woman who think about suicide and that it's not just geeks and nerds and down and out people who think about it, that it can be anyone, from the poorest person to the richest and happiest person. 

I really enjoyed following Aysel and Roman's journey, it was heart breaking and though provoking. What happened near the end I kinda predicted but it was still heart stopping. 

The end was satisfying however , I would like to hear from the characters may be in the future. Overall the book was a real eye opener and after reading the authors note I can appreciate the book a lot more. If you have been enjoying these types of books this year and want a slightly different take on suicide, you should check out, My Heart and other black holes.