Had the young Emily Henry, writing this story about time travel, been able herself to travel in time to the future, she’d see herself now dubbed “QueeHad the young Emily Henry, writing this story about time travel, been able herself to travel in time to the future, she’d see herself now dubbed “Queen of the Romcom” and a staple of bestseller shelves and beach reads. That’s right, The Love that Split the World is the first novel by Emily Henry from back when she wrote YAs and it is a fun debut. Being told ‘there’s nothing scarier than loving someone’ in a book where a rift in reality opens up a parallel universe that sends our protagonist time-traveling makes love sounds pretty damn scary, but in this aptly titled novel love not only splits but also heals. This is a heartwarming story on family and the power of love and being loved that tries to pack a lot into the story and mostly pulls it off. Indigenous histories and myths weave into the present as Natalie, sent by “Grandmother” who’s unexplained appearance at night makes her and the reader question if this is a supernatural or psychological journey, must team up insta-love companion Beau to solve the mysteries of the past before time runs out. An ambitious debut that feels very indicative of the time it was written but manages to stick the landing, The Love That Split the World is cute and ponderous enough to overcome its own shortcomings.
‘Every moment you live, every darkness you face, they’ll all feel worth it when you’re staring light in the face.’
An aspect of Emily Henry's writing that I feel has been a constant thread through her works is how connected to a sense of place they are. I don't just bring this up because I enjoy that, having went to college in my town, she tends to include the vibes of Holland in a lot of her novels (Beach Read shouts out to our downtown donut shop, for instance). Place is very important to Henry and she has discussed in interiews how she feels place influences the people who are there. 'I want my characters to feel like they grew up in the place where [my books are] set,' she says. Henry spent her childhood in Kentucky and Natalie's sense of place in Kentucky really informs the story beyond her emotions about soon leaving it behind to go to college just like Henry herself experienced. It is also integrated in the magic and slow, steady pace of the story:
'I think that with setting, when I really have a deep love for a place, it’s so easy for me to imagine the magic of that specific place. Kentucky is very humid and it gets very hot in the summer and everything is very lush and sticky. I think the magic in a place like that is going to be a slower magic, a warm, sensuous dripping thing, and I think with time travel it works so perfectly. When you’re in a small humid town like that, you feel like time is moving differently and it really is moving differently than different places.'
This comes across quite effectively in the book, and I really enjoyed how in her later YA novel, A Million Junes, she captures the feeling of West Michigan so well too because ' I do think that June is Michigan as a person.' She even set out to write a novel for all the places she had lived and I think that nostalgia and love for location really helps give a lovely texture to her stories.
I enjoyed how much Emily Henry’s YAs tend to dive into a lot of social issues around race and racism—the legacy of racial violence sparks the paranormal aspects of A Million Junes—with The Love That Split the World having big discussions on indigenous cultural heritage and stories as well as a look at issues surrounding adoption. This latter aspect touched off a bit of a twitter discussion at the time of publication (you can read about that here) and reading this I couldn’t help but notice how the book seemed very indicative of its time as a moment in the maturation of this type of discourse. Stories often serve as cultural artifacts that give a unique vantage point into a period of time, which isn’t to say that The Love That Split the World has aged poorly but just that it is a fascinating look at what publishing in 2016 look like. It feels very much of the era when paranormal romance was the Big Thing in teen publishing (when I worked at a Barnes and Noble Paranormal Romance was its own section, curious if that will come back with the success of books like Hazelwood’s Bride) because this fun blend of time-travel, parallel worlds and other elements of magical realism along with the large romance plot felt natural under that umbrella term. It is very different than the current “romantacy” label which already has authors offering critiques that the umbrella term can be harmful as a marketing term because fans of Fantasy or fans of Romance have very different genre expectations or that it seems like a diminutive label mostly applied to works from women as if they aren’t “serious fantasy”. Personally I don’t find having labels with strict genre guidelines to be very helpful aside from making library book lists and see it mostly as product marketing terms that center the commodity aspect of a book.
Which brings me back to the first point because this book coming out in 2016 probably felt a lot more progressive at the time than it does now. It is cool to see indigenous histories centered in a book, but then its a reminder this came out before the big discourse on who can profit off of who’s stories (we all remember American Dirt and the largely unfulfilled promises of major publishers to be more inclusive) and the #OwnVoices movement that was later criticized for forced-outing authors like Becky Albertalli or making authors feel they had to prove their own identities as marketing pitches. This was a major theme in the novel Yellowface where author Kuang makes the argument that for-profit publishing turns identity into a product and largely leads to tokenism and forcing authors of color into genre boxes instead of being true inclusivity. During a recent talk when an audience member admitted they are stressed their own stories “aren’t queer enough,” Kuang said “there’s no such thing as ‘not queer enough’ because your sexuality isn’t a capitalist commodity driven by scarcity and people who gatekeep that are making identity a marketing pitch not an authentic self.” To be clear, this isn’t a criticism of this book at all. more the train of thought I had reading it as I found it interesting to be able to see the way ideas are discussed in novels and how they can be indicative of a certain moment along the growth of discourse around social issues.
‘Sometimes the most beautiful moments in our lives are things that hurt badly at the time. We only see them for what they really were when we stand at the very end and look back.’
But on to the book. It’s really cute though the romance aspect relies on insta-love that grafts deep emotions onto thin air and relies on it to propel the story. How you choose to process or trust the romance will likely make or break this book for readers, though personally I enjoyed being pulled along with it. Beau is kind of bland as a character so the fact that he is hot and has massive biceps and ‘a mouth that somehow manages to look like a shy kid’s one minute and a virile Greek god’s the next,’ does a lot of heavy lifting in making you believe he’s a romantic interest. Though as someone that values being able to have chunks of solitude lines like ‘being with him feels like a better version of being alone,’ made me think “yea, sure, he seems cool.” What helps is that Natalie is an extremely likable and well-done character. She’s quick, she’s snarky, but she also has a big heart and open mind. There are a lot of strong friendships between women who support each other (Natalie being very supportive of her ex’s girlfriend was rather charming despite him being a bit cartoonishly shitty) and the writing really pulls you along. For a debut, Henry rocks some great lines and solid narrative. Its no surprise she would go on to become a Big Deal. I’m happy for her.
‘No story is truer than any other story that has the truth in its heart.’
I did really enjoy how much indigenous myths are central to this book and I thought Henry did a wonderful job balancing the question if the happenings were paranormal or psychological. I like the stories told and how it shows that life and culture are made up of stories and bind us all together.
‘The thing threaded through all the world and refusing to be reduced to a name or a set of rules and instead winding itself through millions of stories, true and made up, connecting all breathing things.’
It does get very “lets explain the Myers-Briggs” at one point that made me chuckle because Henry had just graduated college and being very “lets talk about the Myers-Briggs” was HUGE in all my classes at the very same time (INFP by the way) and just something people around Holland, MI loved to talk about (she attended Hope College here in Holland, for the record and I could feel it in every page of this book, but in a cool way). It does get fairly dependent on the plot going through an elaborate series of twists like a high-thrill roller coaster, but she pulls them off effectively and it makes for a fun read.
‘No story is truer than any other story that has the truth in its heart.’
Emily Henry has had an impressive career and The Love That Split the World is a lovely debut that kicked it all off. It is interesting to see how much her stories have shifted as she shaped her style so its fun to see the early days. A lovely little story full of a lot of heart that, while imperfect, still manages to be a success.
3.5/5
‘the world's going to keep right on being terrible and beautiful all at once’...more
This is knot not your typical Ali Hazelwood but if you are looking for a furr-ociously good time…no, no, that's too corny… mount up and…wait, too sugThis is knot not your typical Ali Hazelwood but if you are looking for a furr-ociously good time…no, no, that's too corny… mount up and…wait, too suggestive… sink your teeth into…ah hell… Okay so Bride by Ali Hazelwood is going to lend itself to a lot of jokes and I applaud Hazelwood for leaning into them because at its heart this is a fun and rather bitingly funny novel that brings us back into the veins of paranormal romance that dominated the early 2000s. A forced wedding between a vampire and werewolf (a big, beefy, beast of a man-beast) in order to uphold an uneasy truce kick off this story of paranormal politicking and high-energy action paired with a slow-burn romance of an enemies-to-lovers plot (okay it’s not really EtL, it’s more like vaguely-distrustful to lovers) that puts a new meaning to the term “heavy petting” (pawing?). I tend to prefer romance stories that have a larger plot to hold them up, which is what we have here, though admittedly the plot is a bit lackluster and kind of conflates complicating the reveal of the politics and mysteries with actual complexity. Still this is a pretty fun read that highlights a lot of what Hazelwood does best in a very different scenario for her while also making it feel like a natural next step for her stories and I think this is one that if decide to bite in for some fun, you’ll get just that.
Oh, have I mentioned the werewolf is huge yet? Big shocker in a Hazelwood book, right? I mean, when I saw werewolf man we all knew this was coming (and so is he…) but guess what? Misery (oh yea, she named her Misery lol) is tall, so I’d like to applaud Hazelwood for some character growth. Oh, wait, sorry, Werewolf Lowe is actually so huge he can’t even fit in their single king-sized bed (if you are playing Romance Tropes drinking game, take a shot for single bed) so you be the judge if its still her big man little woman trope (if yes, take another shot). But it is sort of fun to see a lot of Hazelwood’s signature elements here and I suppose this is the paranormal offshoot of her STEM stories as Misery happens to be a computer genius and that comes in handy (paw-y?) here.
There’s a lot going on here and without spoiling much, due to some long feud and a lot of weird truces that tend to involve hostages and interspecies erotica pairings, humans, werewolves and vampires are all poised and ready for bloodshed and this marriage is another stop-gap in that all. Misery now has to live amongst werewolves (they go by Weres which…okay I’ll get to the world building soon but its not the best) who definitely want to kill her but shes so used to ‘feeling alone among people who were never supposed to be my own’ after living with humans all life that she’s gonna give it the old college try! Good for her even if ‘the whole rival-species-bound-by-centuries-of-hostility-until-the-bloody-demise-of-the-weakest-will-put-an-end-to-the-senseless-suffering thing might seem discouraging.’ Theres a slow moving romance as they move from utter distrust to relying on each other and Lowe being pretty damn into her while refusing to admit it and Misery refusing to notice that he’s pretty damn obvious because we need to stretch this already thin plot out with some romantic tension (drink). This is actually fairly light on the romance and the spicier stuff comes later and while this book does lean towards some omegaverse vibes it feels more a nod to all that than actually embracing it. Except knotting (take a shot). Hazelwood fans will enjoy this and they should, though I’m curious if those who might come to this from a deep love or paranormal romance might find it to read like a pop song cover of a deep-cut song they enjoy.
This felt fairly undercooked though to me. In part because the world building is mostly done through conversation between Misery and Lowe, which is something I love in theory and found books like The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet to brilliantly execute world building through picking up context in casual conversations between characters, but here the two are distrustful and all coy about revealing things. Its like pulling teeth because thats basically what they are doing to get answers out of each other and I found myself shaking the book screaming just fucking tell me already (take another shot, not for tropes but in solidarity). Actually, Lowe is kind of annoying at times to be honest, even with his whole “tough alpha” schtick masking that he’s really a sweet sensitive boy packing a donkey sized dick (drink), and his whole “want better than me” thing was eye rolling. But anyways, the bigger catch is…none of the elements feel particularly fresh? And nobody wants a stale body if you are going to suck it’s blood, am i right vampires? A lot of it felt rather cut-and-paste or “spot what this is inspired by” which sometimes made me realize I liked the techniques better in the other books. Theres definitely a BIG Underworld film vibe here, and the whole sucking blood being orgasmic has been done before. I didn’t dislike this book but it made me actually realize I might like Butler’s Fledgling more than I did before. It all works though, I just don’t think fantasy world building is Hazelwood’s greatest strength and a lot of the ambiguities work to ignore that a lot of it feels fairly flimsy.
So will these two ‘live bitingly ever after’ or will the politics of their world crush them? It’s worth a read, and I did like the characters quite a bit. I do like Misery asserting herself against and “alpha” and him recognizing her as a strong woman with agency. The plot is pretty fun too with some good twists, and really I have nothing to complain about other than it just didn’t land as well for me as her YA book. It does seem to be both chasing a romantasy trend while also broadening and popularizing it so its sort of a publishing slam dunk and I think a lot of people will rightfully enjoy it. It’s left pretty open for a sequel, I’ll look forward to finding out from your reviews because I think one was more than enough for me.
s.penkevich
>
Books:
paranormal
(2)
