"Our Chemical Hearts"

 "Our Chemical Hearts"

Written by Krystal Sutherland

Reviewed by Diana Iozzia

Our Chemical Hearts stands out as being the most problematic book that I have read in a very, very long time. In anticipation of the release of its Amazon Studios adaptation, Our Chemical Hearts was recently re-printed to create buzz and attract new readers to the original source. However, I believe that author Krystal Sutherland created an extremely offensive and hurtful story, one to which teens should not be exposed.

The plot begins with the first person narrator, Henry, meeting the new girl, Grace, for the first time. Grace is extremely shy and is perceived as odd, because she smells, dresses in male clothing, doesn't appear to bathe, and she walks with a cane. Henry and Grace are tossed together to co-edit their high school's newspaper. Henry and his two best friends begin a Nancy Drew-like investigation to understand why Grace acts differently.

Very early on in the story, I began to believe that this is a harmful portrayal of teen relationships, sex, love, and grief, one that should not have been re-printed as it is. I absolutely believe that the publishing house is at fault for not editing the book and taking out matter that wasn't as problematic in 2016 when it was released, but it is now far more unhealthy. We readers and reviewers need to hold publishing houses accountable when they choose to release a book that portrays unhealthy depictions.

Feel free to click away in fear of spoilers, but I am about to list problems I had with this novel.

• Henry treats Grace like a manic pixie dream girl. There are repeated references to this issue in the story. Just because an author points out the flaws, it doesn't mean we can forgive them.
• There are far too many parenthetical asides. This writing style choice took me right out of the story by the end of the first chapter.
• Henry's two best friends are Murray (Muz) and Lola. Murray is portrayed as the annoying drunken foreign character, in this case Australian, who cannot take any situation seriously and uses far too much slang.
• Lola is a gay character, who never stops talking about being gay. I am in full support of having an LGBT character, but it seems like she was just used to be inclusive, not to be meaningful and shed important light on her experience. It feels as if the author watched two episodes of The L Word and thought it to be sufficient research.
• An Indian character named Seeta Ganguly is called Sugar Ghandi by all characters in every instance of her being spoken about.
• Henry's insistence on treating Grace like an experiment or a puzzle to be decoded. Her grief over her dead boyfriend isn't a light silly mystery for him to investigate. He also treats her terribly in nearly every conversation, because he is jealous of Dom.
• Yes, this was published four years ago. No, there still shouldn't have been a sexual encounter, in which Henry felt depressed that he couldn't have sex with her, because they were drunk. Not even a question of consent; he worried he would not be good at sex.
• In another instance, after he loses his virginity to Grace, he listens as she cries while falling asleep, crying that she misses Dom. And Henry is livid, not caring or understanding. He's livid that after he pressured her into sex, and frankly their entire relationship, that she doesn't feel elated after intercourse.
• There's another scene where he feels unhappy that they cannot have sex, because she is too drunk. The conversation should be surrounding that she may have an alcohol problem, not that he has blue balls.
• Henry, his sister, and his best friends stalk Grace as she walks to the cemetery, when they first realize Grace might be unhappy.
• A "Why You Should Date Me" powerpoint presentation, which Henry uses to manipulate Grace and bully her. In which he mentions how her ex abandoned her, not possibly considering who she could have been visiting at the cemetery.
• We even have a moment where Grace tells Henry that she will stop going to visit Dom, because of Henry, because doesn't want her to "|lie| on the grass above his decomposing corpse, crying tears that seeped into the earth to rest upon his coffin".
• Tasteless jokes about her injury and accident. Dom is dead, was killed in an accident that Grace was involved in, and Henry just feels mad that Grace's every thought isn't consumed by Henry. Imagine if something similar happened to your cousin, sister, boyfriend, best friend in real life. Is this how you'd like the story to be told?
• I don't feel the characters or the readers learn any lesson from this story. Teens will not read this and take any positive wisdom away from it.
• There are far too many jokes and negative comments about addicts, especially those who suffer from drug and alcohol addiction. I feel I could count on my hands and toes how many times I read the word 'junkie'.

Let us now examine some direct quotes from this novel:

"Because apparently you still have to chase girls who can't run."

"...Trying to decide if I wanted to vomit because I was drunk or because the girl I'd lost my virginity to had probably been thinking about her dead boyfriend the whole time."

"I wanted so badly to stick to my guns, to make her feel bad for the weeks of hell she'd put me through when she chose her dead boyfriend over me."

In defense of the novel, I enjoyed some aspects of Our Chemical Hearts. I personally enjoyed Henry and Grace's characters at first, as well as the best friends and Henry's family. However, Henry's character was soured very quickly. I loved Grace's character. She is portrayed in her grief very accurately and carefully, which made me wish the whole story was through her eyes, rather than Henry's rose-tinted glasses. Grace was flawed and interesting, and I wish we could have seen more of that, instead of Henry moping about her. Additionally, I enjoyed the format types: text messages, letters, and other social media messages.

Still, this novel is one of the worst cases of toxic romanticization and poor misrepresentation I have ever read. Every John Green book combined with Rainbow Rowell, as the publisher advertises, would be less problematic and hurtful than this novel. I cannot believe that Bonnier Books / their young adult imprint, Hot Key Books, would allow this book to be reprinted, without major edits. This book is horrible and sets terrible examples for teens and young adults. Impressionable readers could misconstrue this novel, but the worst offender is the publishing house for not caring enough about the readers to fix these issues. In an era where political correctness and stories of the Me Too movement are so important and relevant, it feels that Bonnier Books spits in the face of these important topics and completely ignores them, like Henry ignores Grace's true feelings. There is no excuse for this publishing company to have acted this way, other than a greedy gimmick to bring in readers and money. In no way do I recommend this author or novel.

Thank God, they did not end up together. I truly would have burned this book.

I was sent a complimentary edition of this novel by Bonnier Books and Hot Keys YA.