Only Love Can Break Your Heart 12+

About this book

A grieving girl. An unexpected boy. A perfect love story . . . until it isn't perfect at all.

Sometimes a broken heart is all you need to set you free...Reiko loves the endless sky and electric colors of the Californian desert. It is a refuge from an increasingly claustrophobic life of family pressures and her own secrets. Then she meets Seth, a boy who shares a love of the desert and her yearning for a different kind of life. But Reiko and Seth both want something the other can't give them. As summer ends, things begin to fall apart. But the end of love can sometimes be the beginning of you...

Reviews

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR UK EDITION OF 'ONLY LOVE WILL BREAK YOUR HEART':

*Nominated for the 2019 Carnegie Medal*

*Longlisted for the National Book Awards*

"A brilliant and moving portrayal of how loss can devastate a family, and the impact one person's absence has on those who are left behind. It also deals with toxic love and consent in a smart, deft manner without ever feeling heavy handed. It's fantastic." - Louise O'Neill, author of Asking for It (2017 Printz Award) and Only Ever Yours, in The Irish Telegraph

"Another author with a talent for connecting with teenage readers is Katherine Webber. Japanese-American Reiko navigates love and grief amid the claustrophobia of family expectations and peer pressure in Only Love Can Break Your Heart, set in the California desert. It's familiar emotional territory for contemporary young adult fiction but Webber's complex, nuanced protagonist feels real and is memorable." - The Guardian

"Get your hands on Only Love Can Break Your Heart this summer and treat your soul to stunning descriptions of the desert, a star-bright voice, and a gloriously tangled story of healing, family, grief, and love - not with a boy, but with a place, and with yourself."-- Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of the Bone Season series

"Japanese-American Reiko is dealing with grief, family, first love and peer pressure in Webber's second contemporary YA outing. She has a real talent for creating nuanced teenage characters and I loved the evocative desert backdrop." - The Bookseller