Will I love Shark Heart?

A wise, humane, wildly original feat of imagination and heart.

The skill of Habeck in making the incredible credible knows no bounds as Wren and Lewis’s lives are upended by a diagnosis of Carcharodon carcharias mutation, namely his gradual transformation into a great white shark.

A beautiful meditation on art, family, loss, and what it means to be human, this reminded me of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven but is like nothing I’ve read before or since. 

When a friend said Shark Heart was one of the most profound reading experiences of her life, I almost didn't believe her. After all, the absurd premise is that a woman's husband turns into a shark. How profound could it be?

Well, buckle up. Because this is a story about loving and losing someone as they change, whether that's because of disease, addiction, or in this instance, a rare marine mutation, and it resonated with me on many levels.

Not strictly a book about talking animals, in that the animal that talks is actually a human when the story begins. Lewis and Wren are going about their unassuming married life when Lewis is told by a doctor that he has one year until he turns into a great white shark.

A wacky premise that delivers so much more than expected, this beautiful, tender fable about love and mortality is packed with lovesick ocean creatures and mothers masquerading as Komodo dragons.