Heartsick
Three Stories about Love, Pain, and What Happens in Between
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Three true stories of heartbreak and healing that will resonate with anyone who has loved and lost.
In Heartsick, Jessie Stephens follows the stories of Ana, Patrick, and Claire as they navigate the painful aftermath of a major heartbreak. Through their experiences, Stephens captures the universal yet deeply personal nature of emotional pain.
I wrote this book for the person who doesn't want to be told that this too shall pass. Not yet. Who wants to sit with it. And see it for what it is. Who wants to know they're not alone. That their pain is at once unique and universal. Belonging to them and everyone.
Born from hours waiting for messages that never came and years of almost-relationships, Heartsick delves into the feeling of being fundamentally unlovable. By weaving together three true stories, Stephens offers a relatable, addictive, and powerfully human exploration of heartbreak and the ultimate healing power of storytelling.
In the solitude that reading a book demands, one is forced to reflect on one's own life. After all, every time we explore others, we're mostly just exploring ourselves.
These are the stories of Ana, Patrick, and Claire. But within them, readers will find echoes of their own experiences with love, loss, and the journey to healing and growth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Australian writer Stephens parses the "unique and universal" effects of heartbreak in this candid debut. Having experienced the "unholy blend of grief and self-loathing" that, she writes, often follows breakups, Stephens set out to construct a book that "didn't explain away heartbreak," but rather delved into its complexities. She effectively does this by telling the real-life breakup stories of three individuals: 30-ish Claire, who, after moving from London to Australia, met and married her personal trainer, Maggie, despite a friend's caution not to; Ana, a mother of three, who began an affair with her husband's best friend after 25 years of marriage; and 20-something college student Patrick, who fell in love with a girl he couldn't have, until she broke up with her boyfriend for him. As Stephens unspools their stories, each of which succumbs to a slow ruin brought on by doubt and insecurities, she renders in affecting scenes the tidal shifts of emotion—the sickness, the bottomless despair, the acts of self-destruction—that accompany the demise of love. Despite the book's melancholic nature, there's beauty in her subjects' vulnerability and resilience. As Stephens writes, "It is only through sharing... the most tormented parts of ourselves that we're able to discover how much we have in common." A paean to the lovelorn, this stuns in its rawness.
Customer Reviews
Incredible
Jessie Stephen’s captures the thrill and torture of romantic relationships in a manner reminiscent of Jane Austen and Leonard Tolstoy. A must read!!!