The Heavens - The Library of the Uncommons

Hardcover, 272 pages

English language

Published Dec. 25, 2019 by Granta Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-78378-484-4
OCLC Number:: 1111209223

New York, 2000. Kate and Ben meet at a party and immediately fall in love. It is the first year of the new millennium, the first year without a war anywhere in the world. The United Nations has just planted its flag on Mars, and a Green Party senator is about to become the first female president of the United States. Kate falls asleep, knowing that she is loved.

London, 1593. Kate wakes as Emilia - the mistress of a nobleman - and finds the plague at her door. Afflicted by premonitions of a burnt and lifeless city, she sets out to save the world. Each decision she makes will change her life with Ben forever.

The story of love and alternate universes, madness and time travel, The Heavens is a dream bound up in a strange awakening; it is a novel of what we have lost, and …

New York, 2000. Kate and Ben meet at a party and immediately fall in love. It is the first year of the new millennium, the first year without a war anywhere in the world. The United Nations has just planted its flag on Mars, and a Green Party senator is about to become the first female president of the United States. Kate falls asleep, knowing that she is loved.

London, 1593. Kate wakes as Emilia - the mistress of a nobleman - and finds the plague at her door. Afflicted by premonitions of a burnt and lifeless city, she sets out to save the world. Each decision she makes will change her life with Ben forever.

The story of love and alternate universes, madness and time travel, The Heavens is a dream bound up in a strange awakening; it is a novel of what we have lost, and what we might yet be able to save.

5 editions

Shauna reviewed The Heavens by Sandra Newman

Atmospheric and thought-provoking

4 stars

The Heavens is an interesting and largely successful mix of pop literary, historical fiction, and speculative fiction - with heavy helpings of romance and political commentary too. Its basic premise is a promising one: Kate, an otherwise ordinary twenty-something living in New York, lives another life in her sleep. In intermittent dreams she finds herself inhabiting the body of a woman, Emilia, in 1593 England. The chapters are told in alternating PoV. Odd numbered chapters are from the PoV of Ben, starting on the night he meets and falls in love with Kate. Even numbered chapters are from the PoV of Kate, usually inhabiting the body of Emilia.

It was a stay-up-late-to-finish read for me; Newman mixes in plenty of sharp details and moments of humor but overall moves at a brisk pace. That said, I can't give it 5 stars due to some plot holes towards the end …

The Heavens is an interesting and largely successful mix of pop literary, historical fiction, and speculative fiction - with heavy helpings of romance and political commentary too. Its basic premise is a promising one: Kate, an otherwise ordinary twenty-something living in New York, lives another life in her sleep. In intermittent dreams she finds herself inhabiting the body of a woman, Emilia, in 1593 England. The chapters are told in alternating PoV. Odd numbered chapters are from the PoV of Ben, starting on the night he meets and falls in love with Kate. Even numbered chapters are from the PoV of Kate, usually inhabiting the body of Emilia.

It was a stay-up-late-to-finish read for me; Newman mixes in plenty of sharp details and moments of humor but overall moves at a brisk pace. That said, I can't give it 5 stars due to some plot holes towards the end that took me out of the story a bit.

SPOILERS BELOW

Things that bothered me:

There's a moment towards the end of the story, in Ben's PoV, after he has stormed out of the mental hospital where Kate is being kept, where Kate's mother calls and tells him she has died in a fire. This doesn't seem like it should be possible? The universe resets when Kate goes back in time and changes something. If she's dead, the universe can't reset. I wish this had been omitted because it confused me and also serves no real purpose.
I didn't like the Jose reveal. Or rather, I liked it a lot, but I wished it had happened many chapters earlier. The way the book is structured allows her to hide Jose's identity - he is only ever thought of as a character when we're in Ben's PoV. But I don't think it makes sense that Kate would never think of Jose in her chapters - even if he's not there, as one of two time travelers she knows, he would come up when she's obsessing over what to do. There is a sort of incoherent dreaminess to Kate's Emilia chapters that also helps disguise Jose's identity, but honestly the incoherence annoyed me. Just don't try to make it a surprise, let Kate have her full faculties in England, and come up with some other twist for the end.
I thought the explanation for the time traveling was mildly unsatisfying, and I particularly disliked the idea that people trying to make things better always inherently make things worse.

Things I loved:

I did however love the overall message that people trying to save the world inherently make things work. I enjoyed the critique of great man theory.
I really liked the romance between Ben and Kate. I think if you didn't buy it, it would make the book unreadable, but l was into it. I was also really moved by Ben's internal conflicts around loving Kate and being afraid of her mental illness, given his past with his mother, which was seeded early in the story like a Checkov's gun.
I enjoyed the shifting universes each time Kate woke up, and the way her world kept getting closer to our own. I often these days, when looking at the world, feel a helpless "why does everything keep getting worse?" - this is a fantastic interpretation/variation of that feeling.

Overall, happily recommended.