Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

“Wren saw now how passion was delicate and temporary, a visitor, a feeling that would come and go. Feelings fled under pressure; feelings did not light the darkness. What remained strong in the deep, the hard times, was love as an effort, a doing, a conscious act of will. Soulmates, like her and Lewis, were not theoretical and found. They were tangible, built.”

Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

Shark Heart by Emily Habeck is an absolutely gorgeous, poetic and beautiful novel that came to me during a week I experienced the loss of my grandpa, a really good man who will be greatly missed. 

Grief doesn’t always hit you all at once. It creeps up on you in moments of solitude; it’s the quiet and the dark that makes it rise to the surface. It was in these moments this week that I decided to pick up Shark Heart. I dove into its pages and came out just a little bit different than I had been before. I find the best, most touching books tend to have this affect on me. I read Shark Heart exactly when I was meant to. 

At its core, Shark Heart is a story of love, loss and grief. Lewis and Wren are just starting their life together, married and in love. Wren is a serious person. She takes her job seriously and has a plan for everything. Lewis is a dreamer. He loves to act, allows himself to be consumed by theater and always dreams of what might come next. What he doesn’t expect is to wake up one morning to a body changing. Lewis is diagnosed with a rare disease, in which he is transforming into a great white shark. Suddenly, the life they had planned together is upended. Years they planned together is cut short into a few months, and they both have to come to terms with the fact their lives will never be the same. 

Yet Wren and Lewis are not the only characters focused on in this story. Wren’s relationship with her mother, Angela, and Angela’s past is also a central part of the story. This story is told in various forms- flipping from gorgeous prose, to play-scripts, poems and introspective thoughts. The story is propelled by these shifting styles of narration, by glimpses into what it means to love and lose that person to forces far outside of your control. It also brings onto the page a hard truth of our own mortality. I couldn’t help but see this story as a metaphor of losing a loved one to illness or old age, knowing your days with them are numbered and somehow, someday knowing you will have to not only exist but live without them. 

And for people like Lewis, directly affected by these changes, by a life you do not choose for yourself, you have to still find and choose moments of happiness whenever and however you can. 

“Lewis’s psychiatrist always warned about the high likelihood of depression with his disease and screened him for symptoms at every appointment.
But Lewis was the opposite of depressed. He was manic- inspired, buoyant, restless, and euphoric. The experience of living in his own mind had never been so thrilling. Lewis felt like a sorcerer, overflowing with great ideas, with seemingly limitless energy to execute them.”

Shark Heart

This book reflects on what it means to be human, what it means to love not just romantically but as a mother, a child, a friend. Shark Heart is beauty on the page. It is a stunning, lyrical story that will hook you and send you back into the world with a new perspective. I loved it with all my heart. This is Emily Habeck’s first novel, and I am looking forward to whatever book she decides to write next. This story will always have a very special place in my heart.