I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The concept of the novel was disturbing and vaguely reminiscent of the film. The Lobster. I do love the characters and their resilience. The ending was everything.

I hope the novel becomes a film that stays true to the storyline. It would be amazing as the author's words so vividly portray the story.

Emily Habeck's Shark Heart touches on all the topics that make us human. The novel uses the stories of married couple Wren and Lewis and the story of Wren's mother, Angela, to explore love, grief, memories, and illness, writing with beautiful prose that jumps off of the page and into your heart. There were multiple times that I had to put the book down due the intense feelings it evokes. Habeck does not shy away from such tough topics, handling them realistically, forcing you to confront your own thoughts and values. Shark Heart is such a special and meaningful book that encourages you to grapple with the hard parts of being human with courage.

Shark Heart is the love story of Lewis and Wren and what happens to their love story when Lewis is diagnosed with the Carcharodon Carcharias Mutation. What that means is Lewis is slowly turning into a Great White Shark. And somehow, in Emily Habeck's hands, this not only works, it is absolutely beautiful.

We watch the couple grapple with questions like is there a way for them to be together after Lewis is a shark? How should they spend the time they have left together as two humans? How do we find joy amidst grief? Should we? We also go back in time to Wren's childhood and learn a whole lot about her mother and how mutations affected Wren's family long before Lewis. While I didn't want to be forced to look away from Wren/Lewis, I ultimately ended up becoming invested in the mother/daughter storyline as well.

This debut may sound really out there, but it doesn't read that way. It reads with so much accessibility and somehow does not feel outrageous. Rather, it feels true to life and familiar in unexpected ways. This is my kind of love story and I will be thinking on this one for a long time.

"What if magic is just mislabeled peace? A peace that says suffering doesn't have a purpose or reason. A peace that says meaning is the medicine. A peace that says I don't need to know how or why."

Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habeck is exactly what the title promises, a love story. It's the closest I've come to a realistic love story, a love story colored by history, family and tragedy.

Lewis and Wren meet and find in eachother the missing pieces of themselves. Lewis has his head in the clouds and Wren is tethered to the ground. Together, their dreams are rooted but hopeful. That is, until Lewis is diagnosed with a rare mutation, a mutation that is slowly turning him into a dangerous Great White Shark. As you'd imagine, this throws their world a little bit off. While they come to terms with their new reality, we learn about their pasts and how they came to be the people they are in their marriage. The relationships between the men and women who raised them, particularly for Wren and her mother, become a central part of the story. In doing so, we come to understand the way they react to the end of their relationship as they understand it. For me, this is where the heart of the story lies, this is where the truth of the story lies.

I am a sucker for magical realism especially when it's heavy on the realism. Habeck created this world that was just a little bit off, just a little outside of what we know the world to be. Some people, for whatever reason, begin mutating into different animals. These mutations are treated as a disease, a terminal illness of sorts. It's a unique and whimsical approach to something tragic.

I am completely captivated by Habeck's style of writing. Her prose is poetic and everything, down to the story breaks, is thoughtful and engaging. She utilizes different styles -- playwriting, poetry, stream of consciousness -- and combined, they form something truly unique.

My heart broke for Wren and Lewis, but also for myself. So much of the story was relatable and I found parts of myself in both of them (and their mothers). And while my heart was breaking, I was also finding hope. Hope for love, hope for second chances, hope for whatever comes next.

Shark Heart: A Love Story is a story that will stay with me.

Strange and wonderful. So original and very moving. Really a novel about relationships with a quirky plot point.

I'm not sure what to make of this one. The central idea -- a love story affected by a man mutating in a great white shark -- is both creative and a source of true emotion, but I'm not sure what to do with the writing.

A first novel, it feels like it. Bits are overwritten and everything we're to feel gets stated boldly and explicitly. The two main characters (particularly Wren) are nearly perfect (Wren annoyingly so) and connecting becomes difficult at times. I struggled for a while.

But the weird thing: The book's divided into two large parts (with two other, smaller parts wrapping up the story at the end). Part One was a drag. The chapters are short, more a series of vignettes and explanations than a tradition narrative, which could have made it fly, but it just didn't work, primarily because of Habeck's writing. Part Two really flies and is absolutely captivating. I read this section more or less in one sitting, absolutely captured. The structure's the same, the prose is the essentially the same. The emotions feel more earned in this half, with more subtlety and more narrative build rather than just telling. After the crawl of the first half, it became a page-turner with enough sharp turns of phrase and character insight to necessitate breaking out the highlighter.

So...I was a sucker for part two? Grouchy for part one? Habeck just took a great idea but couldn't find her writing groove until halfway through?

I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. I enjoyed the use of weirdness to look at universal issues, and I'll be curious to see what she does next, even as I'm wary of the BIG writing moments of overearnestness (or, maybe more accurately, unearned and frequent moments of earnestness).

Read in one sitting, with my heart in my throat the entire second half - sometimes from joy and sometimes from sadness. Unique and daring and full of feelings.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review

Shark Heart
By Emily Habeck

I don't know how to describe this book. On the cover it is called a love story. It is that – but so much more. It could be a fantasy, or maybe science fiction, or even a bit of horror.

It is the story of a girl named Wren and a boy named Lewis who fall in love and get married. But their happiness is short-lived. Lewis has a disease which will cause him to mutate into a great white shark. The implausibility of this kind of mutation does not keep the reader from experiencing all the pathos involved. And from here, the story gets stranger and stranger.

And yet – the writing here is beautiful. The author makes you feel the love and loss and all the emotions experienced by her characters. While this book may not be for everyone, I am very glad to have read it. For any reader looking for something really new and different, I would recommend it.

Emily Habeck is brilliant! Shark Heart is a thrilling and immersive marine adventure that dives deep into the depths of the human spirit.

They say the first year of marriage is the hardest and Wren and Lewis are learning that the hard way when a few months into their marriage, Lewis receives a life changing diagnosis. He is slowly turning into a great white shark. What follows is a story of marriage, motherhood, metamorphosis, and letting go in this intergenerational story.

This is my favorite book I have read this year and I think it will be hard to beat it. This story just worked for me in so many different levels. The writing is so beautiful. I cannot believe that this is a debut. This book is my favorite kind of weird. One where we are put into a world just like ours but something is slightly different. In this world, different diseases transmute people into animals so while Lewis’ diagnosis is very strange to us, it is not really strange in the world of the book.

We follow Wren and Lewis as the learn to cope with his changing body but we also get a glimpse into Wren’s past from even before her birth. There is some casual queer representation in this story as well that I love seeing. This story is told mostly in vignettes and snapshots into these characters’ lives and what is left unsaid is just as impactful as the words on the page.

The cover of this book markets itself as “a love story” which is always an interesting thing to say because “a love story” and a “romance” are not one and the same. I love books that have a romance in them that doesn’t have to end in a happily ever after. I love the aching melancholy in knowing that a happy ending probably isn’t going to happen for these characters from the very beginning of the book.

It has been so long since I have been so deeply enamored and moved by a book. I cried several times reading this and I can’t recommend it enough for people who can accept a world that is a little different from our own but in such a beautiful way.

Shark Heart was an unexpected look at marriage, parenting and embracing adventure and the unknown. As the book unfolds, Lewis, the main character, starts realizing he is morphing into something new…a great white shark. Watching his relationship with his wife grow into one of caretaking and preparing to see a change in their relationship, Wren must grow and adapt too. I loved the family arc that is told, the backstory paving the way for growth and change, as characters realize they can grow through the situations that face them, responding differently, perhaps, than their family before.

I had a hard time wrapping my head around the description of a book described as witty, charming, and funny, and the main plot of the metamorphosis of a newly married man into a great white shark.

I was quickly impressed by the book, by the grand ideas of love, loss, grief, and joy, by the relationships that last and change and transform the participants. I went into this book incorrectly believing it would be a bit absurd, and not at all to my taste. I left the book with a sense of beauty and devastation and love for the intricacies of life in all of its various incarnations.

My thanks to NetGalley for an awesome read.

Lewis and Wren are just married and living in a world where humans receive a new category of medical diagnoses, similar to cancer, that involves humans morphing into animals, and even giving birth to animals. Shark Heart sounds bizarre, but is told in a way that I can totally imagine living in this world, feeling these feelings that author Emily Habeck so eloquently writes about. Parts of the book are written almost as poetry, or as thoughts a person is thinking, vs narrative prose. Reading this book while on vacation in Maui, snorkeling every day, I felt a bit of what Lewis must have felt as a shark, swimming in the ocean, occupying the sea with all its mysteries.

I also relate to Wren’s personality, and that made me connect even more with this book. She’s logical, steadfast, dependable. Even though I would not consider myself a fan of magical realism, I really loved the nuance of the writing and how she communicated the humans’ feelings in the book. I also loved a recent popular book of a slightly similar approach, Remarkably Bright Creatures, and would recommend Sharkheart to fans of that book. I look forward to what author Emily Habeck writes next. Also recommended for anyone who likes character studies in their novels. Don’t hesitate! Give this genre-defying book a shot! 5-stars. Release date: 8/8/23. 384 pages.

Thank you, Simon Element imprint, Simon and Schuster, and NetGalley, for providing an eARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

@_simonelement @netgalley #sharkheart

If you told me I would become wholeheartedly invested in the story of a man who turns into a shark I wouldn’t believe you. SHARK HEART was the bizarrely beautiful book I never knew I needed.

Told in alternating timelines, the story follows Wren and her husband Lucas as he receives the devastating diagnosis that he will slowly transform into a Great White shark.

This layered story explored the nuances of metamorphosis and was so much more than I expected. The plot was entirely implausible and I have no idea *how* it worked, but I could not tear myself away from these pages. The writing was stunning, the structure was unique, and the themes of love and loss in various forms simply shined.

Emily Habeck took a bold chance on an imaginative premise and I’m so grateful she did.

RATING: 5/5
PUB DATE: August 8, 2023

I would read anything that has advanced praise from Anthony Doerr, but I was especially drawn to the magical realism this book offers in tandem with a story about grief, family and love. Shark Heart absolutely delivered! This novel's powerful characters are sure to stick with you well after the story ends, and the way the author played with form really works with the context of the book.

Wren reminds me of myself in many ways-- she's logical, sturdy, and always striving for perfection. The author does a fantastic job showing her metamorphosis through the novel as Wren continuously turns to love in the midst of struggle. In addition to Wren's story, there are two additional parts in the story that feature her mother Angela's story and Lewis's life as a shark. I wasn't sure how I felt about these being placed toward the back half of the novel rather than being weaved into the main storyline, but after finishing the book, I think this was the right decision. It already has me wanting to reread the book to connect some of the dots between Wren's and Angela's stories.

My heart felt extremely heavy with every page of this story, but I still highly recommend reading if you're looking for a novel to make you feel something.

*Thanks to NetGalley for exchanging an e-ARC of this book for an unbiased review!

I really loved this story. It is beautifully written and believable, despite the impossibility of it. I loved how some chapters were just a few lines, written like poetry or song lyrics. It is a wonderful story of unconditional love and acceptance that feels apropos for the world today.

When I read the synopsis for Shark Heart I knew I needed to read this book. It was fantastic. Im already looking forward to what's next for Emily Habeck.

Thank you to net galley for the advanced digital copy.

StoryGraph review in link. Thank you for the book!!!

I really enjoyed reading this. The characters really developed throughout the story and I liked that there were a lot of metaphors in the story. The cover is also really nice.

I devoured this book in one day! It's the best book I've read all year. I'm still thinking about it since finishing it a week ago. I'll be honest; I was very skeptical given the premise that the protagonist turns into a great white shark. Do NOT let that deter you from reading this book. It is so beautifully written and captures love and heartache so poignantly. I just can't say enough about this book. Run, don't walk, to get a copy. I look forward to seeing what else this author has in store for us readers. I'm not giving any specifics about the story because you should go into with fresh eyes not really knowing much to capture the magic of this story.

Lewis gets his mutation diagnosis in the first year of his marriage to Wren. They say the first year is the hardest, and that’s if both of you are human.

Shark Heart is a great debut novel that defies genre classification. On the surface, it is about a man turning into a great white shark, but that is not actually the central storyline in this quiet and gentle book. It sounds like the book would be absurdist—and it is—but it is also the tender love story of Wren and Lewis, a deep dive into the character and psychology of Wren, and an exploration of different literary styles. Jumping between beautiful prose, poetry, and short chapters written as plays, this book is about both transforming the human body and what it means to write a novel.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an advanced copy of this manuscript.