PURCHASE~GOODREADS
Imagine This: Your heart. Beating out of your chest.
Slowly being carried into someone else’s body.
All your
life, you’ve loved to surf, loved to welcome adrenalin-junkie fun. Except one
day you go out to surf with friends to catch a wave. And you never return
alive.
Your body.
Your parents have to decide if you would have wanted them to loan out your
organs to people who’ll be needing them badly when you never talked of this
event, because well, you’re a nineteen year old, and who in their right adult
minds have even contemplated that possibility?
Meanwhile,
somewhere on the other side of the country, someone needs a heart.
Someone
who’s led a risk-free life, who’s not caught a wave before or might not even
have seen one needs your heart to live a few more years.
Simon Limbeau’s heart under
discussion here.
MY REVIEW
Well, I
think if you’ve not read this book go get it because when I start talking
lengthily about it I might be showering spittle onto your face as well.
Great book!
Amazing storyline! A heart transplant surgery captured so dramatically with
excellence you shouldn’t find on an author who’s up to their sophomore novel,
but Maylis De Kerangal gets this. A star to the storyline.—★
Literary Fiction
at its finest. It’s one of the reasons I love this genre. Every author attacks
it with their own style, deviating against norms, creating new trends, setting
paces for new writers to follow. Again, Maylis De Kerangal gets this! Her
writing is nothing short of beautiful, and shines with literary excellence.—★★
You’ll love
the cast of characters in this. Surprisingly, the main character you’ll find,
is not a person, but a heart! How genius! So, yes, you’d be awed by the innings
and outings of Simon Limbeau’s heart. But of course, you’d find Simon Limbeau a
bit of a tragic hero. You’ll love his mother, Marianne and his father Sean,
watching them break down is like watching a beautiful flower being
disintegrated petal by petal. There’s also Juliette, Simon Limbeau’s
girlfriend. There’s Thomas Remige, the doctor who can sing his lungs out and
has a thing for goldfinches. You’ll love Cordelia Owl, the nurse who is waiting
patiently for her on-and-off ex to contact after a ‘last night’s incident’.
There’s also Renol, something off the ICU doctor who takes care of bodies in a
coma. Claire, the woman in need of Simon Limbeau’s heart would be much loved too.
And the intriguing Harfangs who make up that dynasty with an awesome pedigree
in medicine. A star to all these characters. How Maylis captured all their
lives beautifully in relation to Simon Limbeau’s heart! So many other
characters I can’t mention.
Suspense. I
never thought heart-transplant surgeries could be portrayed to read like some
kind of thriller.
I feel for
Kenragal, I really do. It’s easy to write a well-researched book and have your
audience feel you’re rather throwing your knowledge in medicine at them rather
than weaving it beautifully into your story. So Kerangal deserves a star for a
well-researched novel that bleeds with information that isn’t forced down the
throat of the reader.
My rating is
definitely a five out of five stars for this long-listed Man Booker
International Prize title. Surprised it didn’t win. But grateful it went on
that list so I find out how wonderful Maylis De Kerangal writes, and how I can
naturally be head of her fan club! Get this title on Amazon
I recommend
this book to anyone who wants a title that reads like a thriller but it isn’t a
thriller. If you’ve become a literature snob like I have become and can’t stand
anything that’s not Literary Fiction and excellent, you’d find this book hard
to hate! It’s Heart-Transplant Surgery made enjoyable, what more are you
waiting for to get it?
My work not
done here. Off to post my review on Goodreads and Amazon.
