• Author: Ish Ait Hamou
• Publisher: Uitgeverij Manteau (Standaard Uitgeverij)
• Jaar uitgave: 2023
• Aantal pagina’s: 157
• Coverdesign: Yannick D’Haese
• Originele titel: Hard Hart
• Vertaling: Ish Ait Hamou
• ISBN: 978-9022339978

https://www.standaarduitgeverij.be/bestel-het-heavy-heart-pakket-van-ish-ait-hamou/

Review:

“Having a Heavy heart means feeling sad, unhappy… also: aching heart!”

Belgian writer, former dancer and recently a filmmaker is pretty known in Belgium for the books he has written and for his work in dancing tv-shows as a jury member. But what he is, no matter what he does, is a storyteller!

Heavy Heart was originally published in Dutch in 2014. And I read it in Dutch in 2016. But early 2023 I had the chance to meet Ish and heard him talk about this book and how he actually wrote it in English before the publisher told him to translate it in Dutch and they would publish it. Ten years later he finally managed to convince them to published it in its original form, in English. So when the publisher Manteau asked me to read it (again) and write a short review I wasn’t going to decline!

Tom leaves his estranged family to go study in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother doesn’t care, she’s glued to the television screen; his brother left the house years ago and was never heard of again and his father, the only one that connects to him somehow, doesn’t have the words to keep him home. So Tom leaves.

But Tom is a loner, doesn’t have many friends and isn’t the one to easily connect to someone else. He’s not that different from his other family members. And yet…

When he meets his neighbours Mr. Proctor and Mrs Blake, a couple that’s been together for forty years but never got married, he’s immediately part of their family. When Tom passes by a record store that almost never has a costumer, he starts talking to the girl at the counter, Candice, and learns all there is to learn about her life. A friendship blooms.

And Tom is smitten, he’s under the spell of a girl in his class, Rachael. His feelings for her turn him in a sort of a stalker, but not in a bad way. He’s just always on the lookout for her at school. But he lacks the ability to start a conversation. She’s this popular, young, beautiful girl… until she suddenly stops being that and she turns inward, dyes her hair black and she changes completely.

Something happened to her.

This is the kind of story you read and can’t stop reading! It takes hold and never lets go and on the last pages it even manages to grip you even harder, by the throat this time, just to squeeze a little bit harder and tighter…

“We all have a darkness in ourselves. Discover it before it discovers you!”

And there’s this remarkable thing in this book that gets an explanation at the end of it: everyday is Monday at 2PM!

So far I have never read a book by Ish that I didn’t like and even rereading it, but in another language, hasn’t changed this opinion. Even though his novels are literary works and not thrillers or suspense novels he manages to keep you at the edge of your seat and you just know, you expect a twist and when it does happen, even though you knew it would come, you didn’t expect what he came up with! And that’s his biggest strength!

I think Ish should try and write a suspense novel, he would ace it!

P.S. as this book was translated in English I wrote my review in English as well!