Shark Heart

July 1, 2023
A young couple's happy marriage shatters when the husband turns into a great white shark. Lewis and Wren prove the maxim that opposites attract. Wren is practical and solution-oriented; she works in finance and is the couple's breadwinner. Idealistic dreamer Lewis tried to make it as an actor in New York and has now returned home to Texas to teach high school theater. But Lewis begins to develop worrying symptoms: insatiable thirst, extra teeth, a hunger for fish. It's a rare condition but not unheard of: the Carcharodon carcharias mutation. Lewis is turning into the largest predatory fish on Earth--the great white shark. As Lewis loses more of his human life and Wren tries to figure out how to say goodbye to the world they've built together, she's also reminded of her childhood, when her senses of safety and stability were destroyed as her single mother's own tragic fate played out. For much of the book, Wren's role maps movingly onto real-world narratives of caretaking ill spouses or parents, though this map becomes less exact as the book unfolds. This unfolding, though, is more playful than one might expect: fragments of poetry, play script, and even footnotes are woven into the brief--occasionally a single sentence--vignettes from the lives of Lewis, Wren, and Wren's mother, the book's primary perspectives. The result is a bit Shakespeare, a bit Kafka, and a bit Disney, with Habeck unafraid of sentiment, big proclamations, and talking animals. ("Are we all just actors performing some unbound art form for God, the audience of space?" Lewis wonders.) Habeck's heart-on-sleeve approach to relationships, grief, and natural wonder may strike some as saccharine, but readers looking for an earnest exploration of love will be satisfied. Though occasionally florid, a debut that stands out from the pack--er, school.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from July 1, 2023
Taking place in an alternate reality where humans can mutate into animals, Habeck's debut explores the nature of grief through deft and beautiful writing. Lewis and Wren are newly married when they receive terrible news: Lewis has developed a condition that will transform him into a great white shark within a year. Neither Wren nor Lewis is prepared for the toll it will take; Wren is still healing from a difficult childhood, and Lewis, a high-school theater teacher, isn't ready to give up his dreams. Wren vows to learn scuba diving so she can be with him, and Lewis struggles to continue directing Our Town until his carnivorous side takes over. Wren fights to keep Lewis at home even as his legs fuse together and his eyes remain open and lidless. Her past comes to light, too, exposing the circumstances of her birth and the events that led to her mother's death. Poetic interludes and play-like vignettes punctuate the lyrical prose. This affecting story may appeal to readers of Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures (2022) for its unusual premise. Those who read for emotional heft might be drawn here from Catherine Newman's We All Want Impossible Things (2022).

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.