Review–The Shape of My Heart by Ann Aguirre

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The Shape of My Heart

by Ann Aguirre
 
Summary: Some people wait decades to meet their soul mate. Courtney Kaufman suspects she met hers in high school only to lose him at seventeen. Since then, Courtney's social life has been a series of meaningless encounters, though she's made a few close friends along the way. Especially her roommate Max Cooper, who oozes damaged bad-boy vibes from every pore.
Max knows about feeling lost and trying to move beyond the pain he's been on his own since he was sixteen. Now it's time to find out if he can ever go home again, and Courtney's the only one he trusts to go with him. But the trip to Providence could change everything because the more time he spends with Courtney, the harder it is to reconcile what he wants and what he thinks he deserves.
It started out so simple. One misfit helping another. Now Max will do anything to show Courtney that for every heart that's ever been broken, there's another that can make it complete.


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Source: I received a digital copy from NetGalley

Review:

I have a love/hate relationship with this book. I liked that Courtney wasn’t your average heroine and that the romance wasn’t insta-love with some new and mysterious guy. I like watching friends fall in love and struggle with their feelings. I loved the conflict, the romance, and the slow way the characters fell in love.

But Courtney was worse than your average heroine in some ways because instead of being comfortable with herself, she basically put herself down and was frequently referring to being “aware” of the fact that she wasn’t pretty. I feel like that’s a terrible attitude and I found myself not quite enjoying the romance because it was uncomfortable. If she doesn’t think she’s pretty and she’s narrating, how am I supposed to believe that she’s attractive to others? Love yourself. And then, regardless of what you actually look like, I will see the things that make you attractive.

People complain that there are too many perfect/gorgeous/skinny girls in fiction, but I’d rather have anyone else than a heroine who puts herself down. I know that people are always looking for something that features less than perfect heroines, but I hate that the ones I seem to come across hate themselves for it. I feel like a lot of main characters may not be all that pretty, but if they never talk about how their appearance bothers them, I never really know. I get to watch someone fall for them and watch the way their self esteem blossoms from having someone they love appreciate aspects of them. It just bothers me when characters are always bringing up their appearance, especially if it’s negative because I think it promotes negative body images when I know the author was probably trying to do the opposite.

Once I got over trying to picture Courtney as anything besides the fat and hideous big nosed person she seemed to think she was and just pictured her as a normal person (which she probably was and was meant to be), I was able to enjoy the story and love the way that her relationship with Max, her roommate, grew. I loved Max because he loved Courtney for all of the right reasons and they had such a well developed friendship.

Courtney was a unique heroine. She wasn’t stick thin or drop dead gorgeous (at least in her opinion), she was bisexual, she had piercings and short hair, she played a rock instrument, wasn’t virginal, and was super funny. Max was sweet, full of issues, and needed Courtney in his life as his anchor.
If you like like unique characters and watching friends deal with more than friendly feelings for each other, The Shape of My Heart is definitely a great book. I enjoyed it, despite my frustrations with Courtney’s body image.

3%2520star

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