June 12, 2015

Wicked Review: My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga


Published: February 10, 2015
Publisher: Harper Collins
Acquired: Borrowed Paperback


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.



I just remembered now that I should've written this a long time ago. Sorry for that.

You know how there are those stories with two characters that are so broken beyond repair and suddenly fate decides to play with the two of them so that they could survive or at least somehow learn about life. This book did exactly that and more. Aysel and Roman "planned" how they would die together. Planning your death is not such a good idea. For one, it wouldn't work.

It didn't work for both of them. This is where fate played with both of them. Sure, there is the romance bit but it's not over-powering that it draws the reader's attention away from the actual story. Aysel's father is a convicted murderer. Roman is blaming himself for his sister's death. Aysel doesn't want to have her father's sadness that caused him to kill a young boy that shook the entire town. She feels sad and I definitely felt it. Because of what her father did, she was cast aside. No one wanted to befriend the daughter of a murderer. Even at her own house, she's an outcast.

Roman is the complete opposite of Aysel. He lived that life. He was a basketball player. He had a girlfriend. He smiled a lot. Notice how I used that past tense? That's because that's all in Roman's past. His younger sister died and he blames himself for it. Deeply blames himself for it.

Jasmine Warga hit the mark, with the theme and the romance and the life lessons. This is really good. I couldn't say more.


Hi. I'm Jasmine. My first novel, My Heart and Other Black Holes, will be published in 2015 by Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins. I'm currently writing my second book which is tentatively scheduled to be published in 2016.

I like emotive music, animals of all sorts, lemonade, and Swedish Fish. And books.