Book Review: "Shark Heart" by Emily Habeck

To be perfectly honest with you the summary of this book on Amazon sounded really interesting and pretty different to anything I would usually request in my literature. It was cheap on Kindle and a perfect addition to my reading of books and authors I have never even heard of for the week. However, I do have to say that this book does not come without its flaws and though it starts off very interesting, intriguing and heartfelt, it goes on for a bit in this same style until it becomes very repetitive. The over-romanticisation of terminal illness (at least that's what I think the metaphor was) is not really my cup of tea but here we go anyways!

This book is about the relationship of Wren and Lewis. It goes back and forth through their present and Wren's own past with her struggles about identity. Eventually, in the present day, her husband begins to change bit by bit and they must see a doctor to see what's making this happen. Lewis seems to be turning into a shark. After a while, he begins to get bloodlust for oceanic animals and Wren must accept the fact that there is no cure and that Lewis will one day have to leave her for the open ocean. We really did think that this was all there was to the story, but no. Alas, it goes on.

We then get a narrative that focuses on Wren's mother for some reason. Her name is Angela and she has quite a different experience to Wren in her childhood. I'm not going to lie but this was perhaps the most boring part of the book because it made absolutely no sense whatsoever to include it. We have not had much prior introduction to Angela apart from where she sporadically turns up in Wren's childhood stories and so, this will leave the reader quite confused about why we are all of a sudden getting some random minor character's side story. It makes sense over time, but a lot of it is filler.

Finally we get a section called "Joy". I won't elaborate on that because it will give it away but note that Wren is basically a depressed indie girl for the vast majority of the book.

One advantage that this book has is the characterisation of Lewis. Lewis is by far the most interesting character in the whole book. He has tons of personality and his changes make is seem like he's out of control even though when he is not changing, he is the same old Lewis. The steps it takes towards him changing into a shark are not quick and anticipated, but slow and sad changes, which piece by piece lose the theatre teacher along the way.

However, this book is riddled with things that I can't get behind. I'm going to leave the over-romanticisation of terminal illness alone because that made me feel a bit sick. But, I will press upon the way this book is written and that if you buy the paperback copy, there will be a lot of wasted paper. I have no idea why this is a new and post-modern thing amongst writers to write about two sentences on a page before starting a next one. Just draw a line beneath the section and the reader will understand its a new section. The book is only as long as it is because it barely ever uses a full page.

The next thing I didn't like was the character of Wren. I found her a whiny little indie girl that reminds me of the main female character of '500 Days of Summer'. She is faux-quirky and has no personality whatsoever. She pretends to be a super-organised powerhouse but can't even decide what she wants to eat and then there is the fact that most of the narrative revolves around her. I mean why would you put most of the story upon the shoulders of the least interesting character?

All in all, there are many flaws to this book, these include but are not limited to: lengthy repetitive dialogue with no purpose, interjected minor characters that serve no purpose to the story, faux-artsy name-dropping of musicals which gets annoying after a while and characters who are bland and stale. Sorry, but this book did not do it for me.