{"id":5487,"date":"2026-01-28T14:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T14:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5487"},"modified":"2026-01-28T14:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T14:13:08","slug":"hearts-and-bones-by-lawrence-d-bub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5487","title":{"rendered":"Hearts and Bones by Lawrence D. Bub"},"content":{"rendered":"

An impactful coming of age story of tumultuous first love and the weight of life\u2019s choices<\/strong><\/h3>\n

From her excited days in Harvard University to her fatigued ones in medical school nine years later, Hearts and Bones<\/em> is\u00a0 a dual-timeline coming of age story that meditates on mental health and the consequences of real-life choices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The primary story in 1989 follows a young woman named Maya and how her sweet romance ventures into troubling waters as her boyfriend Peter\u2019s fragile mental state take a turn for the worse. In the secondary story in 1998, Maya is a third-year medical school student, navigating exhausting shifts and the deteriorating health of her mother who suffers from severe dementia. This later storyline depicts the destination of Maya\u2019s and Peter\u2019s life journeys and how once strongly entwined lovers drift apart. The struggles of this older, more mature Maya foreshadow from the start the decisions and mistakes her younger self makes in her relationship with Peter and how the weight of life comes to bear on them both.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

With Hearts and Bones<\/em>, Lawrence D. Bub delivers a polished and well-rounded bildungsroman that touches upon several important topics. From institutional elitism, to sexist violence, to serious mental health issues and loss of loved ones, this novel\u00a0 doesn\u2019t shy away from its at-times difficult subject matter. Even for those topics that aren\u2019t given equal weight in the narrative\u2014such as Maya\u2019s sexual harassment at the hands of the entitled nepo-baby Conor\u2014it reads as a natural, realistic bildungsroman; after all, we are rarely awarded definitive closure on anything in life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to this measured portrayal of mental illness, another key strength of Hearts and Bones<\/em> is the complex relationship between Maya and Peter. At times sweet, sometimes strained, but always dynamic, the faithful portrayal of ups and downs of dating a person suffering from psychosis and depression forges a strong heart of the novel. While the rest of the cast is less dynamic compared to the two principal characters, they are colorful and compelling enough. From the creepy Conor, sexy and snobby Felix, and adorable wild-girl Olivia, to Maya\u2019s deadbeat musician dad and loving mother Barbara, the cast makes the story expansive and well-rounded.<\/p>\n

While both the 1989 and 1998 timelines are strong stories in their own right, the thematic connection between them seems like it could be missing. Peter\u2019s bipolar disorder and Barbara\u2019s dementia are neither explicitly connected in Barbara\u2019s internal experiences nor implied through precise structuring. We are informed that Maya\u2019s relationship with Peter and his psychiatric struggles influenced her choice of specialization in psychiatry, but we are not shown exactly what chain of events and Maya\u2019s experiences lead to and from those points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The overall trajectory of Peter\u2019s struggles is likewise not structured in a way that lends itself to much dramatic tension. Peter has a crisis early on, it is half-resolved, Peter and Maya get back together for a while, and they then drift away; neither is motivated enough to put in the work needed to overcome the divergence of their goals in life. While this is a realistic, even naturalistic way human relationships develop and a good story about strong characters, it withholds the necessary connective tissue to fuse the stories together.<\/p>\n

The positives do ultimately outweigh the pitfalls in the end. The emotional core of the story\u2014Maya\u2019s and Peter\u2019s tumultuous romance and Maya\u2019s relationship with her parents\u2014is solid and retains the novel\u2019s momentum. The story\u2019s subject matter\u2014mental health, messiness of adult relationships of all sorts, coming to terms with loss\u2014is deftly handled and offers fresh perspectives without being heavy-handed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finding one\u2019s bearings in life is a messy ordeal filled with regrets, loss, and seldom any closure, but it can also come with true connection and beauty. Hearts and Bones<\/em> is a heartbreakingly authentic bildungsroman, portraying young love and mental health with an elegant, compassionate lens.<\/p>\n

The post Hearts and Bones by Lawrence D. Bub<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An impactful coming of age story of tumultuous first love and the weight of life\u2019s choices From her excited days in Harvard University to her fatigued ones in medical school nine years later, Hearts and Bones is\u00a0 a dual-timeline coming of age story that meditates on mental health and the consequences of real-life choices.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}