The Love that Split the World – Book Review

By: Emily Henry

What is the story about…

This story follows a teenage girl named Natalie Cleary, who has just finished high school and is preparing to attend college in the fall.  Natalie was born into an Aboriginal community; however, she was adopted at a very young age by a non-Aboriginal family.  Therefore, she knows very little about her background.  From the beginning of the book, Natalie is going through an identity crisis.  She also feels guilt for not trying to learn more about her community.  Natalie begins to have conflicting feelings about her life that confuse her, and she’s skeptical about what she wants to do in college or if she even wants to go. 

Natalie also carries a lot of emotional baggage from her childhood. Her traumas are exposed to the reader slowly throughout the book.  Through the discussions of her childhood, we are introduced to an important character that Natalie calls ‘Grandmother’.   Grandmother visits her at night (we’re unsure if she is a dream or a real person) and gives her life lessons.  When this first began, Natalie was very young, and she would casually bring up Grandmother in conversations with her family.  They were apprehensive about this woman who “appeared” to Natalie at night.  Her parents eventually decided to send her to a child psychologist to help her understand these visions.  After seeing the psychologist, Natalie stopped seeing Grandmother for a while.  It wasn’t until Natalie’s last year of high school that Grandmother reappeared to her.  However, this time Grandmother reappeared to her with a very cryptic message.  She decided not to speak of these new encounters with her parents.  She knew they wouldn’t understand.

The message from Grandmother sends Natalie into a panic.  She begins a quest to understand what Grandmother is talking about, why she sees visions and why she sees alternative realities all around her.   At this time, Natalie meets two other characters who try to help her understand what she is experiencing. 

My thoughts on the book…

This is a very different book than I have read in the past.  This book fits into multiple genres: fantasy, romance, young adult, to name a few. 

The love story didn’t really work for me; it seemed a bit immature and predictable.  There was minimal build-up to the romance; they just seemed to meet one day and fall for one another almost instantly.  Also, there is something about 18-year-olds talking about marriage that makes my eyes roll.  The two characters were also complete opposites, so their love didn’t seem to work, in my opinion. For that reason, I wasn’t attached to the romantic relationship in this book.

The fantasy portion included time travel and different versions of reality, and to be honest, it kind of lost me.  I was pretty confused during most of the book, and the hope of understanding it all, in the end, extinguished pretty quickly.  The ending was a bit of a let down because the result seemed even more eye-rolling than the romance that took place.  Most of the reason I kept reading this book was to see what all these visions meant, and then when I found out, I was pretty disappointed. 

Despite my criticisms of the book, I was intrigued to continue reading to find out the meaning of Grandmothers message. For this reason, I can’t say I love this book, but I didn’t hate it either.

About the Author…

Emily Henry wrote Beach Read, which is another book I have reviewed on this blog. I absolutely loved Beach Read and highly recommend it.