Heart the Lover, by Lily King ★★★☆☆

I saw this book recommendation on Instagram as a love story for readers who don't like love stories. My library had it on the shelf, so I thought I would give it a try. I whizzed through this book in two evenings, so it's highly readable. The writing is good, in fact Part I of the book is excellent, except some parts are a bit too graphic for me; however, I was able to overlook these few instances. 

Part II started to unwind for me and Part III completely lost it. I've been thinking about why and here's what I've come up with:

Part I introduces us to the characters and it really does a great job illustrating believable characters who make realistic choices in life. The plot was interesting and I was engaged. I loved all of the English Lit references. We can an in-depth view of life and thought processes. Plot development and characterization is rich.

Part II is where it gets complicated. The plot twists and in my opinion starts to branch in a direction not exactly anticipated. This isn't a bad thing, but just different. Plus, it's suddenly 21 years later. We experience very little development of characters. They're obviously not the same as they were, but we're sort of let to our own devices to figure out what exactly is going on with them. The storyline is sketchy and the writing in this part is strange. I had to keep rereading passages to fully understand who "you" kept referring to and to understand what exactly what was transpiring plot-wise.

Part III gets depressing. It does not match the tone of Part I at all. In fact, I could realistically say that Part III is Part I's plot foil. More so, though, it becomes unbelievable. Most people do not act this way. It's a stretch and a depressing one. Without giving any spoilers, I would just say that the main character's choices in the end do not align with the real choices any wife or mother would make. Plus her husband's character is a stretch. 

Also, the significance of the main female character's first name is lost on me. I feel like this book had so much potential, but it became something completely different and quite honestly a huge downer so much that its lingering black cloud is hanging over me as I write this.
But with that being said because I enjoyed Part 1 so much, I may try some other books by this author.