The Book That Held Her Heart

"People have to want to know. I wish I could tell you, that free and easy access to information solves these problems. It doesn't. People find their own wells of poison to drink from." This quote gave me goosebumps when I read it. It's scary how true that is in todays context. Even if this is a work of fiction, it is deeply rooted in reality. I finished this book 2 days ago and the feeling of emotional devastation still lingers. Mark Lawrence has taken a gamble by incorporating a real-world storyline in this fantasy universe, but the inclusion of Anne’s perspective as a Jewish girl living in Nazi Germany is natural and completes the narrative. Lawrence quotes the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen,” which translates to “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people.” The Book That Held Her Heart deals with heavy themes like the dehumanization of “the other” the double-edged sword of memory and the danger of knowledge in the absence of wisdom. These themes never interfere with the progress of the storyline. This is a hard balance to keep and Mark Lawrence executed it perfectly. The pacing of this story is fast with an emotional gut punch here and there. The casually subversive epigrams at the beginning of each chapter are a highlight! An emotional and fitting finale for a mind bending trilogy. Above all, it's an ode to books and the knowledge they provide, to libraries and readers.

I'm a little sad to say that I didn't fully love this. The first book of the trilogy was brilliant and I really liked the second one, too, but this one just had me sooo confused throughout its entirety. Perhaps I should've re-read the entire trilogy or maybe the time between my reading the second and third book was just too long, but I found it hard to get back into the story and was confused on how it all worked together. The writing style is just as good as in the other two books though and I really liked the world-building and the characters we've come to love in the previous books.

This book is just wow 😮 4.8 ⭐️ It is a really good end to this wonderful trilogy.   The whole time I was asking myself how is this going to end? Are they going to find each other? Will the world still be there?   The storyline and the character developments are really intriguing.   I can see that most people would have a problem with the holocaust time line in this Book. That’s also something I don’t usually like to read or watch.   But what you learn from the character in that period of time is just so so true!! Plus not only Yute and Kerrol grasp the message of what Anne is trying to tell them. We as readers understand the message as well!   It’s not that important to know everything, to be and see everything, at times the best place you can be and stay in, is the present!   Also in the last 15-30 pages I was asking myself how is Mark Lawrence going to end this wonderful trilogy? 🤔   He did such an amazing job. The Ending is a nice roundup but also shocking and heartbreaking at the same time! 😭🥰   This wonderful book gives you a lot to think about. I can only recommend 😌