What readers think of The Heart's Invisible Furies, plus links to write your own review.

John Boyne has written a remarkable novel that moved me to tears and made me laugh out loud. Starting in 1945 through to 2015, we follow Cyril Avery as he tries to come to terms with who he is and the choices he made. Filled with unforgettable, compelling characters and tragic events in a homophobic Ireland, Cyril is an endearing character with a pragmatic sly wit that I know will stay with me for a very long time. Set in 7 year increments, the pacing was perfect and moved the story right along without any unnecessary fluff. Definitely the best book I've read this year. Want to thank BookBrowse and First Impressions for sending me an ARC. This book will be published in August 2017...definitely add it to your TBR LIST!

John Boyne is simply one of the great writers of our day. He's best known for one of his children's novels, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but I think he deserves to be better known for his many novels for adults, including The Absolutist and A History of Loneliness. Boyne's gifts are his lucid, natural, storyteller's voice that hooks the reader from the first sentence, an engaging, unflinchingly honest and likable main character, and a deep sense moral outrage, directed at all forms of bigotry and cruelty, but most often at the abusive influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland, its misogyny and homophobia.It would be the reader's loss, though, to dismiss Boyne as a "gay novelist." His concern is the human condition.

All of Boyne's strengths are at work in his latest novel, and more besides -- it is an epic with a rare sense of humor, sometimes touching on farce, at other times pathos, and always with a firm grip on harsh reality and empathy for the sorrows that come to us all: loneliness, shame, loss. In nearly 600 pages we span the life of one Cyril Avery, from 1945 to the present day, from his birth out of wedlock to his upbringing as an adopted, mostly neglected, closeted gay in Dublin, and later, the life choices that propel him far beyond Ireland itself, and back again.Cyril is an astute observer of people he meets, the places he lives, and of history. We meet a cast of characters, we see sweeping social changes, even as Cyril changes himself, finds himself, and forges bonds he never expected.

Along the way, through Cyril's voice the author awakened me, more than any other writer has done, to what it is like, out of necessity or fear, to live every hour of every day in a lie: he takes the issue of homophobia out of the public arena and brings it into the human soul, making us feel the damage, the pain, and the ripple effect upon others. And he does it without bitterness, ruthlessly reminding us that some of the damage is self-inflicted, that choices, if hard, are no less real. For all its furies, he shows us, the heart is capable of brave and generous love.

Boyne dedicates this to John Irving, and I think he sells himself short: this is worthy of Charles DIckens.

To call The Heart's Invisible Furies a coming-of-age novel would be selling it short. Sweeping in scope, it is Cyril Avery's "coming of all ages" story. Cyril is many things: a boy with a secret, an adolescent dealing with desires he has no idea how to reconcile with the society he lives in, a conflicted young groom running away from responsibilities, a man running toward and embracing his true desires, ultimately a man becoming his authentic self. He must make his way in a time when begin gay meant relegating yourself to either a life of lies and repression or a life lived on the ostracized margins of society. Cyril is achingly human on his life's journey: he struggles; he loves imperfectly; he makes mistakes; he loves again and finds happiness only to have it snatched away. You ache for Cyril at every stage of life, wishing the best for him, but you are never sure that the decisions he makes will lead him to happiness. This is a story about what makes a family, about enduring friendships, about betrayal and forgiveness, about redemption. Big themes wrapped in a very human story, this would be a solid pick for readers and book groups who like family sagas with an edge.

This book by John Boyne depicts the art of story telling at it's best. It was easy to get wrapped up in the life of Cyril Avery as he grew into a young man mostly by default. He certainly did not have parental guidance or adult supervision that could be recognized as loving and although abuse wasn't the norm either, he spent many years experimenting. Circumstances, chance meetings, chaos, imagination and determination follow (and lead) Cyril through life with those people he loves and finally people who love him too. Ireland and all it's trappings from mid century to the present give all the characters in John Boyne's novel real believability. This is a most enjoyable read and one that will resonate with you long after you put the book down.

This book is a trajectory of one man's life spanning around 70 years. Cyril, born out of wedlock, in 1945, is an unwilling victim of a repressive and horribly judgmental Irish society. His teenage mother was booted out of her small community in the middle of a church service, penniless and alone.
Their journeys are told in seven year intervals--a wonderful way of organizing this unique narrative.

There are numerous themes at play here: obsession vs. love; bigotry vs. openness; and cultural influences vs individual integrity.
Instead of being heavy handed in dealing with such lofty themes, John Boyne employs a steady undercurrent of humor that is disarming in its subtlety-- but often laugh aloud funny!

The thread of the mother/son connection knits together the story as it weaves in and out of the narrative. As a reader, I was constantly driven forward wondering whether Cyril would ever be united with his birth mother. And happily as Patti Smith sang "paths that cross will cross again".

This book grabs you from the first page and keeps your attention until the last. The story is current, modern even, and yet it is as old as time. It is told from one man's perspective .... a story of growing up different in a society that doesn't accept his differences. He tells his mother's story of shame, hurt, and how she conquered it all. We also learn that Cyril's story is equally compelling as he grapples with his unorthodox family upbringing and his sexuality in Catholic Ireland. Cyril feels the necessity of keeping who he is a secret from everyone who knows him, even himself. Eventually, the secrets catch up and Cyril learns that family is made up of those who love you and that you love -- and that it is not necessarily a biological tie. He also discovers that it is really about accepting himself and those he loves as they are. This is a story of love and of a family that comes together in the most unfathomable manner. Each individual we are introduced to is struggling with some facet of acceptance of themselves because of societal pressures to be one certain way. In the end, we find that it is really all about how one perceives oneself and that truth can be liberating. I would recommend this one to anyone. I enjoyed every minute of the rather complex story as Cyril finds love, acceptance and his family at last.

This book is a grand achievement by the author. The story captured the mood and reality of what it was like to grow up gay in Ireland in the time of AIDs. But it was much more; written in the first person, the book tells a story about an ordinary life. The character development is superb as we catch up with the life of the main character every seven years until his death in the present day. One of the best books I have reviewed.

I've heard it said that the human body is completely replaced every 7 years. I kept being reminded of this while reading The heart's invisible furies because in this book we are taken through the main character's life from 1945 to 2015, catching up with him every 7 years to find that his life has changed dramatically. We see, through Cyril's eyes, how attitudes toward gender roles and sexuality change and stay the same in Ireland, Amsterdam and New York. I found Cyril's story fascinating, a very satisfying read.