{"id":4479,"date":"2019-06-13T12:21:28","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T06:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebooksatchel.com\/?p=4479"},"modified":"2024-02-03T11:28:41","modified_gmt":"2024-02-03T05:58:41","slug":"the-heavens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebooksatchel.com\/the-heavens\/","title":{"rendered":"The Heavens is a literary fairytale of madness, time travel, dreams and alternate worlds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate and Ben fall in love at a rich girl\u2019s party. It is the summer of 2000 in New York and \u2018she just stood there, smiling her liking at him\u2019. The world is a good place and life includes grand parties, cuddling up and being head over heels in love. The rest of the cast is just as interesting \u00ad\u2014 Conde Nast interns, mail order brides, rich people, Kate\u2019s ideal parents who are too good to be real, Ben\u2019s dysfunctional family, activists, artists and story tellers.
\nBut Kate has a secret. When she sleeps, she travels to the 16th<\/sup> century. She is now the heavily pregnant Emilia, mistress to a nobleman in Elizabethean England. She has a friend, \u2018Sad Will\u2019 or Shakespeare as we know him better. Emilia might be the dark lady in Shakespeare\u2019s sonnets. And Kate might be the key between the old world of 1500s and the new one of 2000s. She believes she is the only one who can save the world from an unavoidable catastrophe. But how?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Book
The Heavens by Sandra Newman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I had to recommend The Heavens<\/em> to a reader, I would not know how to describe the genre. It is definitely literary, but also speculative and taped at the edges with historical fiction. A literary fairytale, perhaps. Or let me try another way. Remember how Christopher Nolan\u2019s Inception<\/em> left us utterly hypnotized with the dreams within dreams? This novel left me unsure, bubbling with questions, exactly the same way I felt after watching the movie<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Original, Beguiling<\/h3>\n

The plot is original and tempting \u00ad\u00ad\u2014 a maze of dreams, folk tales and minor characters. Each time Kate travels to the past, something changes in the present world. When she is back, she is often confused, sometimes indifferent. She doesn\u2019t know who Shakespeare is (her friends tell her), she doesn\u2019t know the political leaders of the country, she doesn\u2019t know herself. On a parallel note in the modern world, the Twin Towers are in danger, and Ben and her old friends persuade Kate to seek the help of a therapist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Newman\u2019s writing is spectacular. It is lyrical and beautiful, transforming into a poetic archaic language when Kate is in the 1500s. It flows, occasionally gasps and jumps through centuries.
\n\"Book
\nMadness reigns in the plot, the words and alternate universes. It is fresh, weird and told with such conviction and urgency that one pauses, several times, to take it all in and be swooped into a dream. As we approach the end, we are sucked into a psychedelic whirlpool. \u2018What is real? What is the dream?\u2019 that slowly changes into an echo of \u2018Who is real\u2019? The Heavens knocked me off my senses and I am mighty glad it did. Some books are read and some seep into your soul as an experience. The Heavens<\/em> is the latter. As I repeatedly tweet, this is the \u2018Book of 2019\u2019 for me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Book
The Heavens by Sandra Newman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Final Verdict<\/h3>\n

When Kate asks \u2018Are you staying\u2019, all I want to do is to reach out to her through the pages and shout a resounding \u2018YES\u2019. That\u2019s it. I say no more.<\/p>\n

Rating : 5 stars<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nStop the press! Here is an utterly enchanting novel about love, dreams, madness & alternate worlds. Time travel between the summers of 2000s, befriend Shakespeare in the 1500s. I loved this book and I guarantee you would too <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\nDisclaimer : Much thanks to Granta for sending me The Heavens. All opinions are my own.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kate and Ben fall in love at a rich girl\u2019s party. It is the summer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6307,16],"tags":[51,462,6369,187,6368,6817,5089],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-4479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-reviews","tag-5-stars","tag-book-review","tag-books-by-women","tag-favourite-books","tag-magic","tag-sandra-newman","tag-the-heavens"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Heavens is a literary fairytale of madness, time travel, dreams and alternate worlds | The Book Satchel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kate and Ben are in love in New York in 2000s. But Kate time travels in her dreams to the 1500s and is mistress to a nobleman in Elizabethean England. 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