Heart the Lover, by Lily King: "First we make our choices. Then they make us."

This is definitely one of my favorite novels of the year!

Have you heard the thing about how if you’re in your 30s or 40s now, your favorite song or album or band in high school or college is likely still your favorite song or album or band? Though that may not always be exactly right (except, it is for me!), and a favorite song or record is much more pedantic than, say, choosing your partner for life, that idea does get to the theme of Lily King’s incredible new novel,Heart the Lover. Choices you make and friends and relationships you have when you’re young -- big or small, and whether you know it then or not -- have far-reaching consequences for literally the rest of your life. At no other time in your life is that as true as it is in your early 20s.

If you’re a just-graduated young woman, you can, for instance, whip off to Paris to take a nanny job. You can choose to write a novel. Or not. You can throw a dart at the map and choose where to live. The world is there for you to do with it what you can. The freedom! (Even if that freedom is actually kind of an illusion.)

But to back up, Heart the Lover starts with three main characters, Sam, Yash, and Jordan, college students in the South in the late 1980s. Sam and Yash are roommates, and Jordan begins dating Sam, but the dynamics are weird. Narrated by Jordan, the plot proceeds from her college days to her late 40s in three distinct parts. It’s a novel, the less you know about plot-wise going in, the richer your reading experience. That’s especially true if you’ve read King’s novel Writers & Lovers. (If you haven’t, you absolutely should ... and maybe before reading this one.)

This novel is truly a wonder -- a 250-page story that packs the wisdom and sagacity of a book four times its size. King’s understanding of how we are the way we are, why we do what we do, our foibles and quirks, and our reactions to pain and cruelty is deep. And her ability to render these so astutely on the page is astonishing.

And then there’s this quote, which has almost nothing to do with the plot, but is the most clearly rendered version of this idea I’ve ever read: “You know how you can remember exactly when and where you read certain books? A great novel, a truly great one, not only captures a particular fictional experience, it alters and intensifies the way you experience your own life while you’re reading it. And it preserves it, like a time capsule.”

This idea is exactly why I started writing the on-again, off-again Shelf Lives series. But I had to stop and put the book down when I read those lines. They’re perfect.

And this novel is nearly perfect. I loved it so much. All the feelings all the way through. READ THIS.

*Note: The quote in the headline is not from this novel. It’s Anne Frank. But it’s a perfect way to describe the themes in this book.