Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.
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After many recommendations from blogger friends (and especially from Renee), I finally sat down and read one of the most popular books this past year. And no, I didn’t read it all in a sitting, but I could have. It’s THAT good.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies was a beautiful, funny, sad, poignant and ultimately inspiring saga that tells the story of Cyril Avery, a young Irish boy who’s adopted by Maude and Charles -a very peculiar couple-. After getting to know her birth mother and her circumstances, we get to see him grow up, make friends, fall in love and find out who he really is. This book spans many years and is set in Dublin, Amsterdam and New York…
This is one of those books that I wish I hadn’t known anything before I read it, so I will be brief today. This is an absolute gem of a novel. It’s hilarious at times (seriously, the dialogues were witty and laugh out loud funny) and it will also make you cry. After all, aren’t those the best stories? Plus, there are lot of fun coincidences that made it even more enjoyable.
This was not a short book, but I flew through it like it was. It’s one of the most captivating sagas I’ve ever read and I would recommend it to absolutely everyone. Cyril Avery isn’t perfect and he behaves in a selfish way more than once, but I felt like I was inside his head and I could totally understand why he did those things.
In the end, crime fiction and mysteries are my favorite type of books, but John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies made me forget about those for two uforgettable days.
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Doubleday, 2017
I’m so glad you loved THIF as much as Renee and I did! It’s such an excellent book plus the writing is marvelous!
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I’m reading this book soon and I’m so excited about it. It looks fantastic. Fabulous review.
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Of all the books we talk about this was the one I most wanted you to read but yet I was nervous when you finally said you were reading it because I hoped you didn’t hate it haha:) I’m so happy you loved it and now I can find another book to bother you about reading😜
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This book sounds excellent – just requested it at the library!
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I’m so glad to hear that you enjoyed this book. I’m still gushing about it. I agree – it was a very quick read for a book of that length.
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I’ve read unanimous praise of this one from bloggers and it is on my TBR list! I will read it someday! 🙂
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Soon I hope 😛
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I’m so glad you loved this too! It is one of my favourite reads of recent years and I think you made a wise choice by saying little about the content- the beauty is in discovering Cyril Avery for yourself. A brilliant review for a fab book.
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Thank you Cleo and yes, it was such a beautiful and inspiring book
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I have been seeing this book around. It sounds like a really wonderful read. Glad that you enjoyed it Annie. Adding it to my TBR.
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Yesss, it’s long but it’s so addictive and emotional!
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[…] The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne […]
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Yay! I really enjoyed this one too. I really liked all the parallels between characters and how everything seemed to come around full circle. I found the dry humor very enjoyable too.
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The humor was perhaps my favorite part, especially because I expected a super dramatic story. And okay, it was at parts, but it was also so funny!
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