#the Heart Principle

[coffin-flop]

(alt text: in the background is the Disability Pride Flag, in front of that is the book covers of: Out on a Limb; The Luis Ortega Survival Club, True Biz, Blackwater, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and The Heart Principal)

It's Disability Pride Month! Here are just a few books I really liked that would be fitting to read this month :)

Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young - a contemporary romance where a one night stand leads to a pregnancy they decide to navigate together (and both love interests have limb differences)

The Luis Ortega Survival Club by Sonora Reyes - a ya novel about a largely non-speaking autistic teen who's raped by a boy she thought was her friend, who grows a community of people who help one another along a path of revenge and healing

True Biz by Sara Nović - a book about several students and an administrator at River Valley School for the Deaf navigating changes in their lives and their sense of community, and fighting for their autonomy.

Blackwater by Jeannette Arroyo and Ren Graham a YA graphic novel about a badboy teen jock, a quiet boy with an autoimmune disorder, and the spooky things that live in their town. Werewolves and cute romance included.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White - a YA historical fiction horror which takes place in an alternate 1883 London where violet-eyed mediums (men) commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society. When a trans autistic boy is diagnosed with Veil sickness, a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness, he's shipped away to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School, where the ghosts of missing students beg for his help. even tho it's ya, it is horror and the themes are very heavy- check out trigger warnings.

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang is about Anna, who is facing career burnout in a flakey relationship, embracing an open relationship at her longtime boyfriend's suggestion. Instead of the string of one night stands she planned on, she finds someone who accepts her and helps her understand herself. Their relationship is derailed when a family emergency puts even more weight on Anna's shoulders until she finally has to care for herself. This is a contemporary romance, but the subject matter is pretty heavy and the protagonist experiences a prolonged period of autistic burnout

[moonsflowerr]

"the only good thing this broken heart of mine can feel is love for you"

[nazliwrites]

Oh, to be a part of this community where nobody knows me and I know nobody, and be able to talk about our reading obsession without any judgements.

[freckles-and-books]

Still fighting the dreaded slump. Helen Hoang, do not fail me 🙏🏻

[lateseptemberdawn]

“The only good thing this broken heart of mine can feel is love for you.”

The Heart Principle, Helen Hoang

[readinthedarkpod]

We don't promote bullying here. Except when one of us hasn't listened to Hozier's new album. Then, it gets personal. (Stream Unreal Unearth on Spotify you heathens!)

We promise, though, there is book talk happening as well. We discuss very good (and very bad) mental health representation in books, another sad and pathetic man to add to our collection, and our wildly impractical novel protagonist jobs!

Follow the hosts at @hazelsheartsworn @figonas @laequiem @adxmparriish

Books Discussed: The Heart Principle by Hellen Hoang The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

Books Mentioned: Two Wrongs Make a Right by Chloe Liese Take a Hint Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

[all-about-books-baby]

My girl Anna WHAT are you doing????

[tisi52]

My good friends who tried to be there for me and didn't fault me for dissapearing when my life got too hard.

The Heart Principal - Helen Hoang

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Heart Principle | Author: Helen Hoang | Publisher: Berkley (2021)

[cornerstone-of-my-heart]

There are so many other instances of this character (Anna Sun) being autistic and this is one of the more subtle ones, but I like it a lot because I know the exact kind of bar lighting this is. It's low, soft, and pale electric yellow and it is very soothing.

The book is "The Heart Principle" by Helen Huang. She has two other romance novels that I would really recommend!

[pipperoni32-blog]

The Heart Principle

By Helen Hoang / 4 stars

I've adored everyone one of Helen Hoang's books so far. Even with all of them sharing similar themes, the characters are so unique in their own ways, and I've loved their neurodivergent minds.

For this one, there was something even more special about Anna getting her diagnosis during the book that really resonated with me. I have my own medical weirdness, and there's something about finally getting a diagnosis, a name to what you're dealing with, that is such a huge relief. Suddenly, it isn't all in your head. You aren't slowly going crazy, your body isn't failing you in some unknown way. Every little thing you've questioned, times you've questioned your own sanity because of course that couldn't possibly be legitimate, suddenly has a name. A reason. That release of burden is an almost indescribable feeling. Yes, you still have to live with it. You have to change your expectations of yourself, your capabilities and limits. You have to finally be kind to yourself, and accept a new reality. But there's so much peace to it too.

Back to Anna. We start the story with her boyfriend asking for an open relationship. He's sure that she's the one he pictures himself marrying someday, and that she's the one for him. But he just wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't try seeing other people first, making absolutely sure. Anna decides he won't be the only one who will see other people, she will too. And along the way, she meets Quan.

They have a disastrous first meeting. Anna panics and hides in the bathroom for half an hour, hoping he'll leave. Somehow, she still manages to run into him on her way out. Their relationship develops over text, and watching Netflix documentaries together, with some adorable exchanges along the way.

We've seen Quan in the earlier two books. He's confident, happy, and unapologetically himself. Now, he's recovered from cancer, but still hasn't come to terms with the changes it's made to his body. He hasn't been with anyone since then. Of course, he just happens to stumble across a girl that has her own issues with intimacy and vulnerability.

In terms of the main relationship, and navigating complex personalities, this is exactly what I expect from Helen Hoang. And it still works - I love every minute of it. I love the ways they communicate well, I groan in frustration when they hold back, unable to find the right words.

Here, we also see another side. Again, Anna's diagnosis on the autism spectrum happens during the book. One of the people she looks up to the most, her sister, tells her she should have never gone to a therapist, and that the diagnosis is clearly wrong. That Anna thinking she's on the spectrum is insulting to people who actually are. Anna deals with not only learning to accept herself, to not think of herself as lacking or a failure because she can't be what people expect her to be, but also with her family dismissing her new reality. On top of that, her father has a stroke, and becomes paralyzed. Anna is the only one who realizes that he doesn't want to be kept in palliative care. She struggles with not only the emotional burden of caring for someone so ill, but the guilt that everything she does goes against his wishes.

There's a lot to unpack in this book. A lot of emotional highs and lows - and the lows last awhile. Anna deals with burnout, and we get a peek into just how serious that can look. How hard it can be on both the person experiencing it, and their loved ones. How long it can take to get back from. I love that this book is about the healing process though, and how you can get back to a normal.

If you've read the rest of the Kiss Quotient series, I'm sure you'll be just as excited with the last (or latest??) installment. And if you haven't tried them yet, please do! Definitely worth the read.

[bookreadingelf]

Not me reading a romance to read better only for the female main character to get an autism diagnosis and feeling so understood that she cried. Same girl, I'm crying now too because I remember it. But hey, the guy dropped everything and has come to her immediately, so it's still wish fulfilment

[nazliwrites]

“People in my life desperately need to understand the difference between reading and studying. I like reading, not studying.”

[weird-0]

The only good thing this broken heart of mine can feel is love for you

[willowiscold]

Just some books I read in February.

"No one should need a diagnosis in order to be compassionate to themself." - The Heart Principle

[realife-mermaid]

on a second read thru of the heart principle i kind of wish Quan had never gotten sick, and was simply drawn to Anna. He still has insecurities about business, his education, and conflict regarding his background & family vs Anna’s much more rigid & upper class upbringing, and that could have been fleshed out more. But it was kind of jarring for him to have insecurities about an event that we know nothing about (completely off page, he gets cancer, has treatment, and is in remission for a full year) instead of fleshing out the perfectly set up insecurities re: not wanting to be like his “stinky” father - who couldn’t handle Khai being autistic & walked out on them - while spending much of his life being heavily guilted into acting as a surrogate father for Khai by their mother & the complete lack of any good father/husband role models in their family (considering Michael’s father also walks out, altho for different reasons). There’s so much there that could have been explored, in him falling into caretaker mode as easy as breathing for Anna as her life falls apart, but in also chafing at how he’s always playing the caretaker for half the people in his family & now in his romantic relationship too. Instead, he has all of these body issues and insecurities that Anna is simply not equipped to handle & just sort of works through them on his own by…running up and down some hills.

It’s not a sleight at Anna, who is going through just. So much shit. Not just a diagnosis that rocks her whole world, and a family that is super gaslight-y about every aspect of her life, but then a dying father that her sister insists they take care of at home, something all of them are woefully unprepared to do. It’s perfectly reasonable for her to be a less than supportive partner, and if Quan had been struggling with less - and, if he was struggling with a conflict that was more intrinsic to his personality, like the issues of suddenly being an emotional support in a new relationship when he’s been emotional support his whole life - I think the romance would have flowed better and the book wouldn’t have felt so dominated by Anna’s very sad conflicts.

tbh, i think her father should have died around the 60% mark instead of around the 90% mark (he should have started sick to fit the pace). i think we should have seen the beginnings of her burnout from quan’s pov, bc he’s someone who would recognize the signs of it, and that would tied really well into his past issues from the other two books - knowingly walking into a relationship with a woman whose father is dying & then their relationship moving a bit too quickly into living together because she’s suddenly burned out and needs not a boyfriend, but a partner to take care of her, and how that ties into his history of being the one to step up to take care of others. there’s a lot of anna’s family in the book, but we don’t even get quan’s mother on page once despite how heavily she and her sister feature in michael & khai���s stories, and neither khai nor michael interact with anna either despite quan being friendly with stella and esme in their books, and michael being kind to esme in bride test, & khai mentioning he and stella are friends. clearly, the three guys hang out often & bring their partners along, but we don’t even see khai & esme together in the heart principle.

it’s still a really great book!! i think it’s a perfectly good ending to the trilogy (and quan forgetting his birthday but anna remembering, hiding behind a table to surprise him, and then playing happy birthday, of all things, as the first thing she’s played in years just for him, is like, so romantic. it’s what they deserve!!) but when i think about it, it’s not a great ending to the trilogy because quan is written kind of oddly throughout it.