Review To Excavate A Heart

How To Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow

#Jewish #HolidayRomance #Contemporary #YA

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4/5

Jake Maia Arlow's How to Excavate a Heart has been on my list so long that I don't even remember how I came across it originally. It was absolutely a book meant for me. It's Jewish, queer, nerdy, and has descriptions of lab work! My major in college was archaeology, but there's at least a small overlap with what Arlow's main character was doing in this novel. The book was a cute winter romcom with appealing details and setting. 

How to Excavate a Heart takes place during the winter break after Shani's (short for Shoshana) first semester of college. She has just had a really rough breakup and is ready to escape to D.C. for a paleoichthyology (study of ancient fish) internship. On their way to the house Shani will be staying in, her mother bumps her car into a girl crossing the street. Their paths cross again when Shani agrees to fill in for her housemate at a dog-walking gig. The dog belongs to the father of May, the girl from the street. While they're not eager to spend time together, they end up being snowed in on Christmas Eve. Although there are feelings there, they both have a lot of baggage and only a month to spend together. Will the former be too much? Will the latter be enough? 

Shani and May are both lesbians and joke with each other about queer and lesbian cliches. These are cute jokes and references that you deserve to experience in context, so I'm not going to spoil any. They're nerdy queer gals, just like me. Their choices of conversation and dates were right up my alley. With Shani working for the Smithsonian, they spent a lot of time in the different museums. I also appreciated Shani's mentor character. She was just supposed to mentor her during the internship, but when finding out that both of them were queer, they started talking about dating too. I only wish that the thread about Shani's great-grandma maybe being queer was given closure. Shani has more time to find out, but I don't! 

I wouldn't say that Judaism is explicitly talked about much in How to Excavate a Heart, but it is a major part of who Shani is. It's especially clear in any scene with Shani's mom. She's SUCH a New York Jewish mom. She has the accent, the need to make sure her daughter is eating, a connection to every other Jewish person, and more. We only know what Shani does about May, but she's Jewish too. May is staying with her father for the winter break and he's left an electric menorah up the whole time despite Hannukka being over. Ultimately, I'd say the Jewish representation is nice, but not a focus by any means. 

While I definitely loved reading this book, I felt it wasn't heavy enough. I'm not that into depressing books, mind you, but there were hard topics throughout that were given too much levity. A bad sexual experience, poor parental relationship, an injury, alcoholism. I think Shani's behavior after her breakup made a lot of sense, given what is revealed to have happened. Out of the heavy topics that felt off, this was the one wIth the best accuracy. The injury mentioned is basically laughed off and felt unrealistic. May's poor relationship with her father is not sufficiently expanded upon. I understand that the genre is romcom, but there's allowed to be some time for processing, some tough things left raw. Considering this was written before The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet, I'd say that Arlow learned from writing How to Excavate a Heart and allowed the content to hurt more (in a good way, of course). 

If you like fossils, corgis, whimsical old ladies, Washington D.C., gay panic, Jews in love, and/or winter romance, you'd enjoy Jake Maia Arlow's How to Excavate a Heart! It's a sweet easy read to warm you up during the coldest part of the year. Go on and take a free trip to D.C. and into Shani's mind with this book as your portal.