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Review: The Love That Split The World by Emily Henry

My Thoughts

Beautifully complex and wonderfully imaginative
with a depth and singularity that makes this novel stand above the rest.

Related Posts: Read my interview with Emily | See more YA recommendations | Time Travel | 2016 YA Book Trends
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Synopsis

Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.

Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start…until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.

That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.”

My Review

“It’s all in the stories. Everything. The truth. The whole world, Natalie. That girl jumped through the hole, not knowing what would happen, and the whole world got born.”

Emily Henry stuns with her spellbinding debut novel, The Love That Split The World—a time-bending suspense which was contemplative and fresh, evocative and gripping. I loved Henry’s lyrical writing, which brought to life a world both visceral and vivid, with a narrative that centered on love, sacrifice, forgiveness and conviction.

“It’s hard to feel like you belong when you don’t know who you are, and it’s hard to know who you are when you don’t know where you come from.”

Weaving together threads of the past, present and future with accounts that were both foretelling and mythical, the story had a level of depth and complexity that drew you in.

We meet Natalie, whose last summer in small-town Kentucky proves to be magical and mysterious. Her surroundings begin to blink in and out of existence, her world fading in seconds. Things don’t look the way they should and she can’t seem to understand what’s happening. Natalie has always felt as if she didn’t fit in, as if she didn’t belong, and each time her world dims, she’s more positive something is wrong with her.

One night, a woman she calls Grandmother appears. Grandmother has been telling Natalie stories since she was a child—oracular stories inspired by Native American myths. But it’s been years since she’s seen Grandmother, and now she’s back with prophetic words that would change everything.

“Three months to save him, Natalie.”

But save whom? How?

Soon after, Natalie meets a boy, Beau, who is there when time stands still, who is as mysterious as the unexplained things that are happening to her. A connection sparks to life, evoking feelings which quickly—and surprisingly—burrow deep into her soul.

“Seasons stretch into years stretch into decades stretch into centuries, all in moments, while I can hear Beau’s breath, make out his edges through the millisecond of dark before another morning comes.”

As Beau and Natalie’s lives entwine in ways unforeseen, her current life is thrust into chaos as time counts down the three months to save him. Beau and Natalie must find the hidden truths in Grandmother’s stories if they are to change the outcome of their fates, avoid the death of a loved one, and somehow, hold on to each other in a world not meant for them.

“I grab the sides of his face and kiss him again, slowly, deeply, his hands coming around me and lifting me over and on top of him. I fold over him to whisper, “I would still want you here too. In every version of the world, I would.”

The plot takes some time to set up, but if you love beautifully written stories imbued with mystery and romance, you’ll love this book which very much felt fresh and different than what’s out there.

✦ READ MY INTERVIEW WITH EMILY ✦