Book Review: The Love That Split The World by Emily Henry

My Rating: 3/5 Stars

Author: Emily Henry

Genre: YA Science Fiction

Published: 2016

The Love that Split the World was the first book we read for my book club @thereadersguild. There was a lot of hype about it and after looking into the synopsis I was intrigued. It disappointed me a little but there were still enough good points in the book to keep me reading. One of those points being the main character, Natalie. 

Goodreads Synopsis:

Natalie Cleary must risk her future and leap blindly into a vast unknown for the chance to build a new world with the boy she loves. 

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.

At the beginning of the story Natalie is graduating high school and beginning her last summer in Kentucky. She's determined to leave for Brown in the fall and find the answers to herself. She struggles with her adoption and even though she loves her family she's always wondering how her birth mother could give her up. This part of the story was something a lot of people could relate to. Teenagers (and others) struggle with finding themselves and their place in the word. Adopted children usually having an even harder time with this. 

Throughout the story there are stories. There are stories within the story... Grandmother, a mysterious person who appears in Natalie's room on numerous occasions, tells Natalie fairy tales that she claims are true if you just listen. These stories were something that really drew you in and pieced the whole book together. Some of them were retellings of stories I'd heard before while others were completely new to me. Indian culture, the way the world began, and mixed up versions of the bible were all in there.

 The stories pieced the book together but I felt like the whole time traveling, dimension jumping thing prevented me from absolutely loving the book. It was like it was all cobbled together and you'd spend whole chapters totally confused on what was going on and then there would be three or four pages of jumbled up explanations on how this was all possible. I just wish we had spent a little more of the story getting a clear idea of how Natalie was in two different versions of the same town and a little less time on the drama  between her, her ex, and Beau. 

All in all this was a cute, light read that I recommend to you as a beach read. The romance was sweet, and the journey to find yourself was touching and something you could relate to. If your going into this for the science fiction I wouldn't suggest it to you but if you're looking for a romance with a little more to it then it's for you. And besides the cover is to die for!!!