”What…What are you doing?” she asked groggily. “Just seeing what it’s like to love you when I can’t see you.”

Shark Heart by Emily Habeck is a bittersweet story about life and love.

The world in this book is identical to our own except for one key difference: some people develop a disease that causes them to mutate into a different species. When married couple Wren and Lewis learn that the latter is transforming into a shark, it’s analogous to learning one’s partner has a terminal illness. Or when a relationship undergoes anything unexpected that completely changes how things were “supposed” to be.

Wren is practical, Lewis is a dreamer. When they exchange their wedding vows, they could have never imagined how different their lives would look after only a year of marriage.

In their innocence, they failed to grasp the labor of losing a partner, how the tasks of simple existence would become logistical feats and one person’s burden.

This is a character-driven literary novel told in parts (three, I think), with some “chapters” being only a sentence or two long. In addition to the story of Wren and Lewis, the middle section tells about Wren’s mother, Angela, getting pregnant as a teenager and then trying her best to parent after receiving a life-changing diagnosis of her own. The book is chock full of love and grief, and learning to love with both. It is lovely and sad, although it does end on a hopeful note.

Wren no longer sees life as a long, linear ladder with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, she considers how life is like a spiraling trail up a mountain. Each circling lap represents a learning cycle, the same lesson at a slightly higher elevation. Wren realizes she likes to rest as much as she likes to climb. She begins to enjoy the view.