In its essence this book is about love, both familial and romantic, about growing up, death, life and heartbreak. This book took me quite a while to get into but around the end of the first part I was so hooked. I even found myself staying up late til 1 am reading one night because I was so engrossed in it. I absolutely loved that middle bit of the book. It surprised me, caught me off guard, and I'm interested in reading her first book now. I really didn't expect to be so enthralled, so I'm happily proven wrong.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for allowing me to read and review this book early.

I finished Lily King's Heart the Lover in a day - what a ride. This was a beautiful, heart-wrenching read about first loves, heartbreak, and the impact of our choices.

thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book.

DNF-ed at 48%. I haven't read a Lily King book before and was really excited too. That said, I really couldn't get into it, sorry. Just didn't enjoy the story or the writing.

A gorgeous meditation on life and what it means to connect with others. I was so invested in the characters' lives and wanted the best for them even when they were frustratingly stubborn and annoying me. Proves just how good at character work Lily King is. I wish there had been a few gaps filled in about some events discussed but not shown, though I can see other readers appreciating the subtlety there. Makes me want to go back and read more of Lily King's backlist!

I knew this book would rip my heart out. Lily King is a prescient about people, their motivations, their weaknesses, and what draws people to each other. King's writing is so good. Not just the dialogue, her sensory details, and her observations but also the energy in her voice. Her work has a rhythm, a propulsive feeling to it that is so deliciously consumable. I am intrigued by every character. I want to know more. Couldn't put this down. Thank you NetGalley and Grove Press for this ARC!

Completely and utterly blown away by this book. I read it in 24 hours, despite how sad and tough it was at times. One of my favorites of the year.

Wow wow wow. Not much compares to this. Read in only a few sittings and the later half slipped away from me. A devastating portrayal of longing, missed opportunities, and the slow crawl towards death at the end of a long illness. I won’t forget this book in a hurry. So much complexity in a prosaic, intellectual flurry of care and compassion.

I was so close to loving this but I couldn't shake the feeling that the author felt like she was trying to fill some Sally Rooney shoes and didn't quite live up to her. By all counts the topics should be deep and vulnerable (re exploratiom of first love, death, complicated personalities, difficult family situations) but just didn't hit for me.
Not that it wasn't an enjoyable and well written novel but....
I think I need to contemplate the but more and come back to edit my review.

HEART THE LOVER is a gorgeous story of love, writing, complex relationships, growing older, grief, forgiveness, and hope. Our main character and narrator, nicknamed Jordan, becomes entangled in the lives of two young men at college and we see how their choices lead them down different paths over the years. King perfectly captures the nostalgia of youth when we felt everything so deeply and intensely, as well as the bittersweet experience of aging. I inhaled this one and the ending left me teary-eyed and hopeful. A fast-paced, character-driven story that is achingly beautiful and deeply human. Thank you so much @grove for my gifted copy.

The main character is a senior in college and meets two best friends: Sam and Yash. They invite her into their works and nickname her Jordan. Little does she know how big of an impact they both will have on her life. Many years later, she has to face some choices she made in past and how it’s really impacted her life through the years. Beautiful and heartbreaking.
Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the early read in ex songs for a honest review.

Was extremely let down by this novel. It was short, rushed, and the ending was disappointing. To be honest I expected more from Lily King - this was not a strong novel.

<I>Thank you so so so much to the publisher and Lily King for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.</I>

<b><u>PLOT</u></b>
Broadly, so as not to give away more details than are in the plot summary, this is a book about a love story that spans several decades. It's more about life and finding oneself and knowing oneself more so than about the finding and losing of love. The way Lily King writes is about all aspects of life and her FMC going through it. Importantly, this is also a story about how life may not be made up of traditional happy endings, but can still end on a happy note.

<b><u>HOW I FEEL ABOUT THE LOVE STORY</u></b>
I didn't like it... There. If this were a traditional romance, this book would not have as good a rating from me. When I first finished the book, I sat with it for a minute, read the book description again, and then said, out loud
*Bradley Cooper Silver Linings Playbook wtf gif*
So then why did I still feel so good at the end??? Because the story was about more than just the love story. As I said in the plot summary, this was a book about the FMC and how she carried herself through her life and love, how much peace there was at the end of the book. Again, without giving anything away, if you like Lily King, you will feel good at the end, even if, like me, you saw all the red flags riddled throughout the love story.

<b><u>HOW I FEEL ABOUT THE WRITING</u></b>
I FLEW through this book. It was so easy to read and as I already stated over and over, I felt really good at the end. I think it is so powerful to write something that does not have a traditional love story or a traditional happy ending and still make a reader love it. I have sat with this all night, I feel confident Lily King knows it ended the way it should have. In another review, I wrote about an FMC having some baggage and when I read this book, I was like, ah, I see it, here is the baggage. A transformative love can still be baggage. You can certainly look back and say "ah, what could have been?" but still acknowledge that things ended up the way they did for the better.

<b><u>TL;DR</u></b>
I'm so glad I read this! I'm so happy to add it to my repertoire of "Things I love = things Lily King wrote." It was wholly unexpected, it was superbly written, it was a breath of fresh air. It was so heavy but so whimsical at the same time. It was the perfect story of being young and having such a clear idea of how life is going to go and then everything goes topsy turvy but at the end you're right where you're supposed to be. Easy five stars.

This is a well written story but just not for me. I couldn’t’t get invested in the characters. So at 25% I am abandoning this book. I will not post on any sites since I did not finish.

This was a sad, simple, and sweet book about a mostly unnamed woman who falls in love in college and about the life she makes with and without the man she falls in love with. It's also about how we experience and remember our lives. It's about time. I read it quickly and I liked it a lot.

4.5 stars. I really loved this. I’m only taking off a half star because the intellectual literary conversations were a little bit annoying and pretentious after awhile. I can’t relate to people who talk about Joyce and Camus and random Greek authors as much as these people did. I wasn’t expecting such an emotionally gutting read but it was really compelling. I’m kind of sad I finished it; this one will stick in my mind for awhile.

I absolutely loved this book and didn’t want to put it down. It’s a heartfelt coming-of-age story that captures both the messiness and the beauty of life. At its core, it’s about first love, loving deeply, and all the emotions that come with it. The unpredictability kept me hooked—I truly never knew what was coming next. A moving, beautifully written story that I highly recommend.

This spare little novel has important things to say. In only 130 pages, the reader follows the journey of 3 friends from college throughout their complicated relationships as young adults, and again, when time hops forward into middle age. There is not a word, a sentence, or a scene out of place, and I will be thinking about this novel for a very, very long time. It is clear that Lily King is writing at the peak of her powers. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for my gifted ARC..

I genuinely have not had a book make me this emotional in a loooong time. What a beautiful story of first loves & growing up. Lily King's writing is always so lyrical, but I think this book struck me the most. She places so much character development into a story that is so short, but nothing feels rushed. This is such a beautiful piece of work and I am so blown away!

Another beautiful, heartfelt, gut-wrenching book from Lily King! I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.

Lily King is an auto-buy for me and Heart the Lover did not disappoint. This is a slight novel - told in 3 sections over 3 decades. The first section sets up “Jordan” - the persona the narrator adopts in college - and her two friends, Yash and Sam, both of whom she’ll become romantically involved. The next section details a reunion of sorts between Yash and Jordan when she’s newly married to Silas and the mom of two young boys. The third section is a sad coda to the lives of all 3 characters. The book is filled with the longing and tragedy of young love. King is an extraordinarily gifted writer and this story will stay with me for a long time to come. Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Press for the DRC.