Book review: My Heart and other Black holes written by Jasmine Warga

Book Title: My Heart and other Black holes written by Jasmine Warga

Author: Jasmine Warga

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publication Date: 10 February 2015

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Fiction, Suicide

Note: This review contains spoilers.

A story of two young people battling with the same tormenting mental disorder, depression, Aysel, a 16 year old physics nerd who has been very eager plotting her own death found a courageous way to fulfill her objective thru a website called Suicide Partners in which she has found her suicide buddy, FrozenRobot.

FrozenRobot or Roman is also struggling on the same illness. He blames himself as the reason why her younger sister died. Thinking that it’s the only way to pay the price, he wanted to kill himself on April 7, her sister’s death anniversary.

Thus, Aysel decided to choose FrozenRobot to do her suicide with although for her, the name “frozen robot” sounds like a flake. The two decided to meet up to get to know each other and plot their plan. Through series of interaction, Roman and Aysel were able to establish deep connection that ends up with the both of them getting to know each of their family though Roman only met Aysel’s half sister, Georgia. And Aysel, despite of having nothing in common with Roman still managed to gain his parent’s full-trust in order to get away on their suicide date, April 7. Roman had an emotional instability after her sister’s death so his parents were warned by his doctors to keep an eye on him and not let him go anywhere alone.  Thanks to Aysel, he now can. He’s free to plot his death without his parent’s awareness.

Well, this is one of my favorite parts here…

As their suicide daycomes, Aysel realized that she is a flake, backing out of their plan to die for she realize that there is more to life, that how you live life depends on how you perceive it. Before their suicide date comes, Aysel search for his father who has been jailed for killing Timothy Jackson, the supposed to be Olympic athlete to represent Langston and later on, transferred to a mental institution. The issue spread out in her entire village that then became the reason for her friends to stay away from her. Hence, It was the reason why she wanted to end her life at such an early age.

Aysel believes that it was Roman who changed her mind, by knowing him deeply and well, falling in love with him. It was Roman who saved her life so she wanted to cease him from ending his life or if she failed to stop him, she wouldn’t let him die alone.

“You are resilient”, Roman said to Aysel. This is the part when Roman realized that Aysel deserves to live, that Aysel could still change and be happy for the rest of her life.. It was only a day before her sister’s death anniversary, Roman  attempted to kill himself alone Thank goodness, Aysel and Roman’s mother come just in time and Roman was sent to the hospital immediately after seeing him unconscious inside the car.

In the end, Aysel confessed her love for Roman and they both found hope to live on.

NOTABLE PASSAGES:

• Anyone who has actually been that sad can tell you that there’s nothing beautiful or literary or mysterious about depression.
• Liking things is dangerous.
• We all want to believe that every day is different, that every day we change, but really, it seems that certain things are coded into us from the very beginning.
•  But now I draw because sometimes it feels impossible to talk. It’s like I’m trapped in this deep hole that I can’t get out of. I draw to try to escape it, even though I know I’ll never be able to.
• Everything in life is about the perception of the observer.
• Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.
• …and frankly, the frustrating thing about love. Things that matter to the other person start to seem intriguing, even if they are actually trite when you really think about them.
• I wonder if that’s how darkness wins, by convincing us to trap it inside ourselves, instead of emptying it out. I don’t want it to win.

WHAT I LOVED ABOUT THE BOOK…

I honestly love everything on this book. I love the threaded-patch cover of this book, its simplicity, how well it was written and most especially, I love the message of this book. True to fact, depression is an agonizing mental disorder, which makes a person suffering kill himself physically to stop the pain mentally and emotionally. It makes an individual feel empty on the inside without being visible to even the person closest to her heart. I have become interested with this book because I was once into this state, that I thought the only answer to all this thing that runs in my head, all these things that I feel is to simply end everything and just shut down myself. Until one day, I realized that I am so unfair to the people that I will be leaving. Under those circumstances, this book reminds me of myself letting go of any pessimistic thoughts, changing my perception on living this life.

DO I WANT TO SEE THIS ON BIG-SCREEN?

Big YES! My heart and other black holes deserve to be on big-screen because it raises awareness for people to understand a person suffering with depression. According to Jasmine Warga, the road to recovery is long and ongoing, that in many cases, the battle with depression is a lifelong one. Her book, my heart and other black holes depicts the story of every people dealing with same emptying battle: loneliness, sadness, and self-doubt — -depression. Your closest friend may be struggling through it but you just don’t recognize them because depression may happen to even the most cheerful person in your life, they just don’t want to open up because of what? Afraid to be judge, not used to talk a lot or worse, they think it’ll just pass-by and everything’s going to be normal again. No, they need help.

WILL I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ALL AGES?

Yes, definitely... Children under 10 to 16 years old must be under supervision while reading this because there are some parts of this book that are not suitable for them or they may not understand.

RATINGS: 5 stars for the concept, 5 stars for cover, 4 stars on the flow of the story.

This is originally published to my medium and goodreads account: Check it out here: https://medium.com/ceeart/book-review-my-heart-and-other-black-holes-written-by-jasmine-warga-c7460055e1b4