Reviews with content warning for Grief - Heart Bones

I wasn't fully in love with the main characters. They seemed a little too juvenile for me. The book had some tragic moments in them that were surprising, but honestly not my favorite Colleen Hoover book. I don't think I really felt the full connection the book was trying to project.

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lizziemarie01's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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bookishchaos's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I loved this!! The story and the characters were well written, you definitely weren't expecting the "plot twist". Yeah some parts were a little unrealistic but that's why I like Colleen's books, they're entertaining lol! This is a great summer read that takes place almost entirely on the beach and there's also no cliffhanger.

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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I wanted to read this book because I'm patiently waiting for my paperback of It Starts with Us, I was going to read Verity first but I saw that they were changing the cover on this book from the white one to that ugly cover so I quickly bought this one whilst I could get my hands on it.

This book follows nineteen-year-old Bekah Grim. Her one ambition in life is to get out of Kentucky. One night after she gets home from work she finds her mum dead from a drug overdose in her trailer park home, her landlord is asking for the rent that her mum missed out on or to get out of the trailer in four days. Bekah decides to ring her dad who she hasn’t seen since she was sixteen to ask if she can stay with him and within 24 hours she is in Texas, with her dads second family. She has two months before she goes for the future she has built and Beyah’s plan is to keep her head down and let the summer slip by seamlessly, but her new neighbour has thrown a wrench in that plan. Samson and Beyah have nothing in common on the surface. She comes from a life of poverty and neglect, and he comes from a family of wealth and privilege. But there is one thing they do have in common is that they’re both drawn to sad things. Which means they are drawn to each other. With an almost immediate connection too intense for them to continue denying, Beyah and Samson agree to stay in the shallow end of a summer fling. What Beyah doesn’t realize is that a rip current is coming, and it’s about to drag her heart out to sea.

I didn’t expect to like this book as much as I did. But it was just heartbreaking and mended my heart at the same time. I loved that the various characters and how they all have actual personalities, which sometimes can be missed within books. This book starts straight with the drama with the events of Beyah coming home from work and then finding her mum and having to move to another state and I just wanted to hug her. I wanted to hug both Beyah and Samson multiple times during the book especially towards the end, it was all happy and fluffy and then drama happened. I loved that Beyah took up for herself and Samson and that Samson wanted her to live life whilst he was away. They were breaking each other as well as healing but I loved it.

I did think some things were a bit predictable – Samsom financial situation and the big secret that Samson was keeping - I thought it would be worst and it wasn’t. It still has a big twist which I didn’t expect, I had an inkling that Rafe was important but I didn’t realize how important it was.

The way that CoHo writes about Beyah’s journey of grief is just sad and heart wrenching, but the connection with Samson and Beyah is so adorable and I enjoyed the fluffy side of CoHo that I haven’t seen before.

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brynhayes's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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carloscapy's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

I liked the storyline, and I was not expecting that ending at all!

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chai_and_books's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I personally think this was one of Colleen Hoover's better stories. By no means was is perfect, but compared to her other work, it was easier to digest. I found Beyah to be an interesting main character in the sense that I could sympathize with her but some her decisions made no sense to me. Maybe that also had to do with the pacing of the book, it was too first at the start and dragged out in the middle and then everything was wrapped up in the last 20 pages. Samuel was our typical broody, mysterious man with demons from his past, so nothing out of the ordinary for Colleen Hoover. But his motives and actions made sense considering the circumstances he was put in (for the most part). At least he wasn't a walking talking red flag (minus the whole secrets part). One of my issues with this book is the lack of nuance and depth when it came to certain topics and themes in the story. It talked about people struggling with addictions, absent parents and how flawed the childcare system is among other issues, but they were all very surface level observations. I wish we explored Beyah's relationship with her mother more. Yes, I understand that she was absent for most of her life, but the resentment Beyah harbored was always told not shown. Her attachment to the Mother Teresa picture added some depth but it was never truly developed. I really liked Sara though. I enjoyed how they subverted the evil step-sister trope. The romance was cute, a little sudden and surface level for the most part but I went in knowing this, so I didn't hate too much. I ended up shedding a tear here and there, but only because I was having a sad day and decided to use this as a coping mechanism (go me!)

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