Heart, You Bully, You Punk

This novel is perfect. The ending is also perfect. After you've finished reading Heart, You Bully, You Punk, it stays in your mind, the whole thing in motion, so that you can pick it up on a random page and start reading, and still be enthralled, and understand exactly what's happening, see how well it's written, and grasp how everything in this book is just where it should be, reflecting and illuminating everything else. It's ridiculously well written. Far and away the most beautiful book I've read in years.

I must say I have never read a book by Leah Hager Cohen but this must take the cake! It is absolutely inthrawling. It used great imagery and at times made my head spin with flashbacks! I loved the book...until the end! I must say Heart, You Bully, You Punk seemed to end rather abruptly...but all in all its a rather good book.

This book delves into all sorts of love-romantic, parental, love of what you do for a living-showing that the emotion, like life, is never perfect. To do this, Hager Cohen has drawn three intriguing, mostly likeable characters, and by interspersing chapters in the voices of Wally, Esker and Ann, we get cystalline picture of their characters and actions. Ann in particular is a luminous portrait of a teenager both insecure and brave, lovely and awkward, immature yet on her way to other things. These people Hager Cohen writes about are far from perfect..Ann has a destructive habit of flinging herself from high spaces, Wally is a pushover, staying in a marriage that's long over, Esker shuts herself off from the world for reasons that don't really seem sensible, but thanks to Hager's gift, I could at least sympathesize. Nicely drawn scenes, well-edited dialogue, and these three memorable characters...I really recommend this.

THis book is delightful, refreshing, an engaging read with many layers. Cohen's metaphors, images and referene points made me smile, pause, reach for a highlighter. My only complaint was that it ended too soon.