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A review by tesslw
Before My Actual Heart Breaks by Tish Delaney
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
TW; death of an infant, forced marriage, rape
I have no doubt that almost everyone on this corner of the internet has at least heard about this book - but, if you are like me and didn’t really have the foggiest what it was about beyond being (yep, you guessed it) another sad girl Irish debut (1000% my type on paper), then allow me to enlighten you.
Before My Actual Heart Breaks is the chronicles of Mary Rattigan; a young girl in the 1970s, growing up in a staunch Catholic family in Northern Ireland amidst The Troubles, she is constantly led to believe that she is of little worth or value to the world by her mother; yhet she is smart and dreams of leaving for America one day, to make a life for herself there. However, when she falls pregnant at the age of 16, not only out of wedlock but by a man who is not her sweetheart (the doctor’s son), she is forced into a wedding to an older man who is neither her boyfriend, or the father of her child. Moved in with her now-husband and estranged from her childhood / school friends, Mary is left to raise her child in a farmhouse with a family that is not all her own.
BMAHB is, at its core, Mary’s life story - but it is also a deep exploration of one couple’s marriage and their encounters with parenting, loneliness, communication (and regularly, miscommunication), stubbornness, resentment and compromise. Whilst by no means framing Mary and her husband, John’s relationship as exemplary, or even happy on many occasions, it captures the tireless ebb and flow of relationships; particularly the balance between physical and emotional intimacy, and illuminates the moments of joyful unity alongside the gaps in their shared understanding of the world, and of each other.
I really enjoyed this book throughout but for me the ending really made it - if this is one that you’ve been meaning to pick up for a while, I would absolutely recommend that you do.
I have no doubt that almost everyone on this corner of the internet has at least heard about this book - but, if you are like me and didn’t really have the foggiest what it was about beyond being (yep, you guessed it) another sad girl Irish debut (1000% my type on paper), then allow me to enlighten you.
Before My Actual Heart Breaks is the chronicles of Mary Rattigan; a young girl in the 1970s, growing up in a staunch Catholic family in Northern Ireland amidst The Troubles, she is constantly led to believe that she is of little worth or value to the world by her mother; yhet she is smart and dreams of leaving for America one day, to make a life for herself there. However, when she falls pregnant at the age of 16, not only out of wedlock but by a man who is not her sweetheart (the doctor’s son), she is forced into a wedding to an older man who is neither her boyfriend, or the father of her child. Moved in with her now-husband and estranged from her childhood / school friends, Mary is left to raise her child in a farmhouse with a family that is not all her own.
BMAHB is, at its core, Mary’s life story - but it is also a deep exploration of one couple’s marriage and their encounters with parenting, loneliness, communication (and regularly, miscommunication), stubbornness, resentment and compromise. Whilst by no means framing Mary and her husband, John’s relationship as exemplary, or even happy on many occasions, it captures the tireless ebb and flow of relationships; particularly the balance between physical and emotional intimacy, and illuminates the moments of joyful unity alongside the gaps in their shared understanding of the world, and of each other.
I really enjoyed this book throughout but for me the ending really made it - if this is one that you’ve been meaning to pick up for a while, I would absolutely recommend that you do.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death and Rape