Heart the Lover - Lily King - ★★.¾

AUTHOR: Lily King

GENRE: Literary Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: September 30, 2025

RATING: 2.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A literary fiction focussing on a young woman, the men in her life and how they affected her path. Begins shaky (probably because the key characters are young adults and didn’t resonate with me), but gets a bit steadier as it progresses. Not as whimsical as the cover suggests, but the title is the good fit for the plot. Thought-provoking, but also dragged, pretentious and unnecessarily depressing. Those who have read ‘Writers and Lovers’ might enjoy the secret connection this book has to its plot, but this is written as and works as a standalone. Recommended, but not to all.

Plot Preview:

In the senior year of college, our unnamed first-person narrator meets two students in her Literature class: Sam and Yash. The trio become good friends, and engage regularly in battles of the intellect through banter, discussions, and card games. The boys nickname the narrator “Jordan”, and that’s who she becomes for them. Two of them start developing feelings for each other, but soon, certain choices alter the situation for all three of them.

Cut to a couple of decades later, when forty-something “Jordan” is finally living the life she wanted, having pushed the memories of youth and first love behind. Then one day, the past arrives at her doorstep.

The story comes to us in three distinct timelines, each from a specific point in the narrator’s life. The first and third sections are in her first-person point of view, while the middle timeline is addressed in the second-person “you”, with “Jordan” addressing that entire timeline to someone unnamed. (We figure out in the third section who this “you” is. The true identity of “Jordan” comes only at the end.)

This book is officially a standalone. However, if you have read this author’s most popular title, “Writers and Lovers”, you will find a surprise connection to that story. In terms of timeline, this book, because of its huge time-jump in between, works as a sort of prequel-cum-sequel to the earlier novel. But each of the novels is independent, so you needn’t read one to enjoy the other better.

Bookish Yays:

💘 The opening sentence. Instantly intriguing!

💘 “Jordan”. A mostly interesting character with a realistic approach towards life.

💘 Short and fairly quick, despite being character-oriented and introspective.

💘 The characters act their age in each section, which is commendable given the time span of the story. You can actually see some maturity in the third section when they are all older.

💘 The title, the meaning of which we learn only on reading the book. It suits the book in various ways.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

💕 The three sections don’t have chapters. So it’s essentially a book with three giant chapters. (Or rather, two giant chapters and one tinier one.) Thankfully, you have transition breaks in between, so you can still pause at those points.

💕 The trope of keeping the narrator unnamed keeps the mystery alive. Then again, it is silly to keep referring to her as “Jordan”, thereby subverting the whole point of an unnamed protagonist. Such a writing choice is supposed to add to our curiosity, not feel gimmicky.

💕 The prose is quite lyrical and thought-provoking, often using the character’s introspective mood to deliver pearls of wisdom. However, the writing is also pretentious, especially in the first section with its overdose of literary classic and philosophical discussions. It feels like the book is trying very hard to prove how esoteric the trio are in their thinking. But this flops because it keeps the reader distanced from relating to the proceedings. Moreover, the three characters aren’t that highbrow for the rest of the book. Seriously, why couldn’t the conversations have been a bit more grounded? Who talks like that in real life?!?

💘 The story instantiates the three types of love: attraction-based, compatibility-based, and practicality-based, which is quite interesting. Despite so many relationships, the book isn't a romance in the true sense of the word. Yet, in a strange contradiction, the book is all about romance. Most of the introspections and interactions centre around love, both present and lost. This become boring after a while.

💕 I have a fondness for the second-person voice, and it is used nicely in Section II. However, the abrupt change to second person in between two first-person sections jars a bit.

💕 I absolutely love the cover, but it absolutely doesn’t fit the book. I expected something far quirkier given that whimsical artwork. (I adore those daisy-petal eyes with the falling petals doubling as tear drops. How clever and imaginative!)

Bookish Nays:

💔 The initial chapters of Section I. I almost DNFed the book at the strongly YA writing with the dominant focus being on physical attraction and the characters’ behaviour being utterly self-centred and judgemental. It suited the characters’ ages to some extent, but it wasn’t what I expected from a literary work. I have a feeling many readers (especially those like me who aren’t fans of YA-style writing) will DNF the book in this section, which is sad because it does improve somewhat.

💔 The men in the story. I couldn’t find them any of them believable or likeable. Running away seems to be their solution to most problems. (Funnily, the men in ‘Writers and Lovers’ were also the same.)

💔 The various themes: first love, heartbreak, grief, hope, choices, what-ifs. All create a melancholic effect, but somehow diluted in approach. The plot was spread too thin.

💔 The nonlinear structure with its random back-and-forth was a test of my patience. I wish the flashbacks had been limited, and better indicated.

💔 Seeing one of the characters be half-Indian in ethnicity excited me. Unfortunately, except for his name and a vague reference here and there, the India connection is never utilised to the fullest. Considering how key he was in the proceedings, this is disappointing.

💔 Section III. Initially, I felt that it might add value to the plot, but it went in an unexpected direction, turning the story into misery lit. Also, it was filled with too many needless characters and hence felt cluttered.

💔 The miscommunication trope. So very annoying in this one!

Overall, I genuinely expected something witty and quirky given the title and cover. But this ended up highly introspective and depressing. The initial content also was a big turn-off. Thankfully, the plot matures with the protagonists.

I began this book directly after completing “Writers and Lovers”. Except for the singular point of commonality, I didn’t find the plots interdependent in any way whatsoever. But it was good to get a broader view of the same world. The editorial team might have made the deliberate choice of avoiding timeline references to hide the connection between the two novels. But the time jump and the ages of the characters anyway tell us what we need to know.

Recommended to those literary fiction readers who believe that the human soul develops only through suffering. There are hardly any moments of joy in this book, so it would help if you aren’t looking for something light-hearted or happy.

My thanks to Grove Atlantic for providing the DRC of “Heart the Lover” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.