THE HEART IS A STAR by Megan Rogers

🛑 Trigger warning: this review mentions suicide and mental health concerns, and the book has other possible triggers in it.

The Heart Is A Star is the debut novel of Australian writer Megan Rogers. The lead character is Layla, an anaesthetist living in Queensland who rushes home to western Tasmania after her mother threatens suicide. The story tells us about Layla’s current life and challenges, before she heads to Tasmania for Christmas and to “rescue” her Mum.

Once in Tasmania, Layla begins to unravel the truth of many aspects of her life, particularly her childhood and the relationships she has with her mother and deceased father.

I liked the premise of this book but I felt that it was too slow to really kick into the story at hand, spending too much time explaining the background of Layla’s story. While these may have been necessary to justify her choices later, it took too long.

There are also sex scenes in this book which, as other reviewers have noted and I agree with, were completely unnecessary. They did nothing to progress the story or relationships.

As Layla begins to understand why her mother’s mental health has failed for decades and why she has made threats and attempts at suicide, it forces her to confront parts of herself she was ignoring. Some of this was odd to me - as a doctor, I felt that she should have had a better grasp of these issues. I also felt really uncomfortable about the indifference of so many characters to Nora’s mental state. I know things in rural and regional Australia are different to the cities, particularly in health service provision and attitudes, I thought it was really glaring that this woman would have struggled to the extent she did for so long without serious intervention.

I will say that Rogers’ writing is beautiful and lyrical. I will also say that the writing in Chapter 35 is stunningly beautiful - a sign that Rogers has a tremendous future, if she can get plotting and pace right. I totally believe she can.

I enjoyed this book, aside from my thoughts above. I wouldn’t recommend it to victims of abuse or trauma at this stage but otherwise, I think readers will appreciate this novel and look forward to more from Megan Rogers.