Two twins. Two lives.
Hephzibah: the older, prettier twin who can’t wait to go to college and escape the horrors of the vicarage – but then there’s her sister. Protect or avoid?
Rebecca: she’s always known she’s looked different. But now there’s college to navigate, as well as a father to hide from.
After one twin dies, the life of the other is torn apart. As she searches for answers and tries to escape her subdued mother and cruel father, will she discover who she is, or crumble under the weight of it all?
This book was hard–hitting – hard–hitting as in, I didn’t realise this stuff can still happen and things can go on as normal and it’s cruel beyond any form of reasoning. Maybe I’m just naïve, but this book made me sit up and think for a good while after the last word was read.
The story is split into two parts – before and after the death – the first part is told from the viewpoint of each twin, varying from one chapter to the next. One of the things that struck me hardest was the cruelty of ‘the father’ and the sense of foreboding that you got almost as soon as you started reading. Elements of the story, such as the fact that Rebecca calls her parents ‘the parents’ or ‘the mother’, built the story into a tragic tale that almost brought me to tears at several parts of the novel.
Black Heart Blue is the most thought-provoking book I have read for a very long time. Though the story was hard, and sometimes difficult to continue reading, it made me feel good to have read something that felt more meaningful than some other books I have become accustomed to reading over the holidays!
Definitely a book you need to read to feel the power of words again.
