The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne – Book Review

I absolutely loved this book!!

Cyril Avery’s birth mother was raised with a very strict Catholic upbringing and when it was discovered that she was pregnant and unmarried, she was soon cast out of her family, her church and her town.  She gave birth to Cyril and gave him up for adoption.  This story tells Cyril’s life from birth to death covering not only his major life events but also world events such as the AIDS crisis and 9/11 along with the ongoing prejudice against gay men.  We travel with Cyril from Dublin to Amsterdam to New York and back to Ireland.

There are quite a few characters in this book but what I loved was how the author plotted the story so that all the character’s lives intersected at some point.  When a new character was introduced, the reader may not know exactly what role they will play in Cyril’s life, but at some point, they will intersect and all will be illuminated.

This is a chunky book running approximately 590 pages on my Kindle, however, I became so engrossed in the story that it felt like I got to the end of Cyril’s story too soon.

Highly recommend this book – I don’t give out a lot of five stars but this book certainly deserved it and is my favorite read so far this year.