Love That Split the World (Henry)

The Love That Split the World 
Emily Henry, 2016
Penguin Young Readers
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781595148506


Summary
Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.
 
Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start…until she starts seeing the “wrong things.”

They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.
 
That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.”

The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Emily Henry is full-time writer, proofreader, and donut connoisseur. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the New York Center for Art & Media Studies, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
The YA world is buzzing about The Love That Split the World, a high school love story from debut author Emily Henry. It’s got all the ingredients of a riveting read, like time travel and a mythology twist. The book follows Natalie Clearly, eager to leave her Kentucky high school for the hallowed halls of the Ivy League, but the night before graduation, as the school gathers at the football stadium, the stadium lights flash and Natalie sees a vision of a handsome stranger. They flash again and he’s gone — but her life is changed forever.
Entertainment Weekly


[C]aptivates, both as a romance and as an imaginative rethinking of time and space. The relationship between Beau and Natalie sizzles while also reflecting the innocence of first love, and the unfolding mystery of their changing realities is enough to keep readers turning pages…. [A] story with depth, originality, and complexity.
Publishers Weekly


A well-written piece of magic realism about the price we pay for daring to love, and the price we pay if we don’t.
Booklist


Moments of introspection are balanced by fully realized secondary characters and occasional moments of hilarity. The story begins slowly but picks up speed and intensity as the clock runs out, ending in a conclusion of intricate twists.... While the love is so at-first-sight as to be clichéd and the cultural issues problematic, this debut is otherwise sensitive, lyrical, and deftly plotted.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
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