New Release Book Review: Heart Bones by Colleen Hoover

Title: Heart Bones

Author: Colleen Hoover

Published: February 14th 2023 (this edition)

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Pages: 368

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Romance

RRP: $24.99

Rating: 5 stars

Beyah Grim has only ever known a life of poverty and neglect. After surviving by any means necessary, she finally has a hard-earned ticket out of Kentucky with a full ride to Penn State. Two short months before she’s finally free, an unexpected death leaves her homeless and forced to spend the remainder of her summer on a peninsula in Texas with a father she barely knows.

Begging the summer to go by quickly and hoping to remain as invisible as possible, Beyah wants nothing to do with Samson, the wealthy, brooding guy who lives next door to her father and who couldn’t possibly understand where Beyah’s coming from or what she’s been through. But with an almost immediate connection too intense for them to deny, and futures leading them to opposite ends of the country, Beyah and Samson decide to stay in the shallow end of a summer fling, neither of them realizing that a rip current is about to drag both their hearts out to sea.

Review:

“If there’s nothing inside a heart that can break, why does it feel like mine was going to snap in half when I move? Does you heart feel like that?”

A Colleen Hoover book that is highly devalued in my eyes over this popular author’s other smash hit novels It Ends with Us and Ugly Love, Heart Bones is an insanely amazing read from the Tik Tok queen of romance. Incorporating a narrative filled with adversity, young love, survival, resilience, family, trust and identity issues, Heart Bones is an upscale read that I absolutely ravaged over two days.

Introducing a heroine that you will never, ever forget, Heart Bones follows Beyah Grim, a teenager on the cusp of adulthood who has lived a life of great setbacks and hardship. Beyah is a survivor and she is determined to break free from her circumstances. With a full scholarship secured at a college in Pennsylvania, Beyah is ready to wave goodbye to her former life on Kentucky. But just as she is ready to make her big move, the loss of Beyah’s only family member means she must spend a summer in Texas with her largely absent father. Beyah is keen for this trying summer season to come to an end as quickly as possible so she can begin a new chapter of her life. But when a mysterious rich boy from the house next door enters Beyah’s world, her life is forever changed. With a swift romance quickly taking shape, Beyah and Samson know that their burgeoning relationship is destined to end once the summer season comes to a close. However, fate and life in general has plans for this couple. Will their hearts break into tiny little pieces by the end of this fateful summer?

Three cheers and more to Colleen Hoover for Heart Bones. This number one international bestselling author has succeeded in tearing my heart apart and piecing it back together again thanks to my unforgettable reading experience of Heart Bones. If you are a fan of Hoover’s work and you have not picked this one up, I advise you to read Heart Bones without delay!

I loved Beyah’s tragic and personal back story. This is what Colleen Hoover does best, she is able to bring her readers a story so emotional and trying that we cannot turn away.

Beyah’s life is filled with tragedy, neglect, poverty, personal sacrifice, unfair situations, survival, adversity and true hardship. It’s truly inspiring and completely amazing that she triumphs over her circumstances. If ever you think your life is crap or hard, then reminding yourself how people like Beyah have it will serve as a wake-up call. I desperately wanted Beyah to succeed in all her expectations and future plans as the story rolled on. But at the same time I was so angry with her parents! Mostly her mother, what a poor excuse for a caregiver – she seriously needed help. Beyah is inspiring and admirable, I couldn’t believe how she acted and behaved based on what she witnessed in her life. In the male lead of the tale, I was immediately drawn to Samson – much like Beyah. Samson had some kind of magnetism and I saw all goodness in his character. Samson’s mystery encouraged me to read on and I admit that I did not see his twist coming at all. In the secondary cast I adored the step sister relationship that is set up so well between Beyah and Sara. I also liked the evolution of Beyah’s relationship with her father. Hoover certainly excels in this department.

With a range of serious themes around parenting care, education, achievement, endurance, lies, addiction, poverty, personal goals, responsibility, hard times, forbidden love, abandonment, tragedy, resourcefulness, paying it forward, reconciliation and family estrangement, there is so much to absorb in Heart Bones. The romance is just divine and I could not peel myself away from this book or the characters. They will no doubt live on in my heart and mind way after saying goodbye to this story.

Heart Bones rests easily in my list of top five CoHo reads. Heart Bones is a sensational story of triumph and hope over misfortune.

Heart Bones by Colleen Hoover was published on 14th February 2023 by Simon & Schuster. Details on how to purchase the book can be found here.

To learn more about the author of Heart Bones, Colleen Hoover here.

*I wish to thank the publisher, Simon and Schuster Australia for a copy of this book for review.