The Love That Split The World

by Emily Henry

Emily Henry's stunning debut novel perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we've left untaken. Natalie's last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start...until she starts seeing the "wrong things." They're just momentary glimpses at first - her front door is red instead of its usual green, there's a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn't right. That's when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls "Grandmother," who tells her: "You have three months to save him." The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it's as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.

• ISBN13: 9781595148513
• Publish Date: 10 January 2017 (first published 26 January 2016)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 30 June 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Razorbill
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[Liz (Bent Bookworm)]

~*Full review here on The Bent Bookworm!*~

“No matter how hard it feels, you don’t need to be afraid to move on, and you don’t need to be afraid to stay either. There’s always more to see and feel.”

^How I felt after finishing the last page of this book.

What this book is: 90% emotions/feelings. Glorious, ooey-gooey lovey-dovey, feelings that make me want to actually try to hope for HEAs and the best in life and love. Adorable. Cute. Romantic.

What this book is not (i.e., please don’t pick it up if you’re into these things): deep, extremely thought provoking, realistic.

First of all, I’m so stinking proud of myself for READING AND FINISHING this book! At long long LOOOOONG last, as it came in my February 2016 OwlCrate. Yikes. I read like one “meh” review of it and lost all my enthusiasm for the story…which I sort of regret, but I also realize that at the time, this sort of ooey-gooey-ness would probably not have sat very well with me…and quite possibly would have resulted in it being thrown across the room, never to be finished.

The Love That Split the World is an adorable summer story of love, loss, and teenagers finding themselves and each other. Sprinkled in between the emotionally intense, physically warming scenes (but never explicit or very graphic, and there is no actual sex in the book) are gems like the quote above, and others I desperately wish my 16-18 year old self (hell, even 19, 20, or 21 year old self) had read or known.

“You shouldn’t be scared of someone you love.”

The book briefly addresses the issue of consent – even for “just” making out, and one scene in particular left me feeling rather nauseous even though “nothing happened.” Alcoholism is also brought up, and addressed in one of the most succinct ways I have ever seen – painful, as it always is, but it was done so, so well. Huge props.

Oh, and the characters!! I’ve discovered yet another book boyfriend – Beau, your beautiful soul has won my heart. I will also confess that in high school, I admired the football players from afar so…yeah…piano AND football playing Beau is just totally swoonworthy. And I always, ALWAYS get hit right in the feels by the broken-but-still-strong hero types, the ones who just remain good people at heart despite having been given the shit end of the stick in life. Natalie’s spirit – her need to KNOW, her intense desire to find herself, to make something of herself – really resonated with me. While I don’t know how it would feel to grow up a minority (not only in your town, but in your FAMILY) in a small southern town, I spent a lot of my growing up years in places not unlike her Kentucky hometown and to some extent, I can imagine. Especially in small town America, people who don’t look (or act) exactly the same are often viewed with suspicion and outright dislike. In Natalie’s case, her biggest struggle seems to be with not sharing her looks or personality with her adoptive parents, and the fact that she was hassled about it by her classmates when she was younger.

I adored the time bending/travel aspect of the story. I was a little (ok, very) confused for awhile, but eventually I realized what was happening…mostly. I still DID NOT see that ending coming and my poor little heart nearly burst with ALL THE FEELS. I didn’t quite CRY, but my throat squeezed very very tight, my eyes burned, and I blinked rapidly for a few moments. Then I had to read the last few pages about 5 times to make sure I hadn’t missed anything!

Diversity: This was my first pick for the January topic, Biracial Awareness (check out the suggested bookshelf!), in the Platypire Diverse Books Reading challenge. Natalie is bi-racial, and adopted. Another main character is Korean. The author does not belong to either of these groups, but she seems to have put a great deal of effort into making her story authentic and respectful especially to the First Nations cultures she draws from in the writing of the book.

I gave this book 5/5 stars. It is an amazingly fun and cute romance with enough time-turning stuff to keep that side of my brain interested too.

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HO-LY SHIT. WTF just happened?!?? My heart is in complete shards right now but it is painfully hopeful.

Actual review to come.

[reveriesociety_]

Beautiful but it felt all over the place too, and from a writer POV, I can totally get the ending but as a reader I'm dead.

[sarahjay]

7/15/15: I will write a real review when it is closer to the release date but for right now these are my feelings for this book:



Update 5/1/16: Those are still my feelings about this book. I just finished rereading and I still love it so deeply. This book feels real to me in ways that so many others don't. The ending made me cry the second time as much as it did the first time.

[Chelsea]

Quick Thoughts
1. Ultimately I loved reading this book. It was interesting and only kind of predictable.
2. I didn't really like the ending. I know the author was trying to leave it a mystery but it just didn't work for me. There's too many possibilities and we really don't know what happened.
3. I love Beau as a character. He was so strong for someone being in a really tough situation. The insta-love was a little strong in this book though which turned me off a little.
4. The more I think about this book the less stars it gets. Something that really annoyed me (and I couldn't put words to it until Raeleen from padfootandprongs07 on YouTube said it) was that it felt like the author was trying to cover all her bases when it came to ethnicity, races, gender, etc... The was a lot of pushing about the character being Native American and it felt like it didn't really fit with the book. The was also a part where the character was talking about feminism and once again it didn't fit.
5. I would recommend this book to people who like to really think about the story. It's not an easy read because there's a lot to wrap your head around.

[shannonmiz]

This review was originally posted on It Starts at Midnight
Since there really wasn't anything I didn't like (though I will say that I was iffy for the first couple chapters- so know that going in, because it gets amazing and you do not want to miss out), I am just going to tell you what I did!

• The characters were amazing. They were very well fleshed out, and I loved them. Friends and family were very key, even though there's also a very ship-worthy romance. I liked that there could still be a focus on family and friends while the romance built! Plus, the characters just seemed so, so real. You could really just see why they were making certain choices, because what they were doing truly fit the personalities that had been carved out for them.


• The plot is glorious! It's definitely unique, and definitely held my attention. I wasn't really sure how it would all work out, and I was really thrown by a few twists- in a very good way! I was kept guessing the whole time, and since I was so invested in the characters, the stress and emotions were high!


• The feels were intense. I think that because the world building, plot, and characters were so well developed, I couldn't help but feel all the emotions during this book. There were swoons, and chuckles, and tears, and I loved it.

Bottom Line: It's glorious! I love it, and I would throw it at any and all of you so you can read it too. Oh, and it totally doesn't hurt that the cover is gorgeous too. But the insides definitely match the outsides, no question!

*Copy provided by publisher for review.

[Sam@WLABB]

I am going to struggle with this review, because if I tell you one of the major things I LOVED about this book, I would reveal a major plot point. I will tell you that this is a book about love - familial and romantic. It's about change. It's about choices. It's about identity. It's about love, and this love that split the world.

This is the summer before Natalie leaves Union to pursue her degree at Brown. She should be elated and excited, but she isn't. She has been dealing with a great deal of inner turmoil, and had previously made big changes in her life. While she is trying to deal with the fall out -- the loss of things she loved to do, the loss of close and dear friendships, she is also dealing with nightmares, which she has been unable to get to the bottom of for many years. And then she meets him - Beau. He is a broken boy, as she is a broken girl, but for some reason, he makes her feel safe and understood.

I loved the web that Emily Henry spun for us and the way she challenged me to try and figure out all the connections. I loved the way Henry wove in Native American tales and Biblical stories. I fell in love with Beau and Natalie, and was so vested in their relationship. This story is a journey, and it has many ups and downs. My emotions went up and down with the events in the story and culminated in chapter 31!!!! Chapter 31 was so painfully beautiful. I cried. I shed actual tears and did that sobbing, hiccuping thing too.

The ending was so beautiful, I am starting to cry just thinking about it. But, I shed tears with a little smile, because it was so gorgeous, and perfect.