Henry and Len have been best friends forever. It's now their senior year, and nothing has really changed-- until, suddenly, everything does. At the tail end of a party, someone dares Len to kiss Henry, and the kiss is explosive. Everything Henry has ever wanted. It throws everything into question for Henry: his friendship with Len, his own sexuality, and what things will look like going forward.

Henry Hamlet's Heart is a sweet book about growing up, redefining relationships, and learning to trust in who you are.

Spoilers ahead!

Oh wow what a book! I have a lot to say. First off I love an oldie, Myspace and text talk, takes me right back! I got Date Me Bryson Keller vibes from this book and it's made me want to go back and read one of my favourite books so that's a positive! The chapter lengths are great, I was a bit suspicious of the Parting 1,2 & 3 of the book, but I actually liked how they broke the story up.

The description is great, I love the way Rhiannon describes the weather for example which is consistent throughout. I would have liked a little more detail in other areas, like a description of backstory characters a little more and would have happily read another 20/30 pages for that. That being said, Len was described very well.

The romance is sparse throughout the first part of the book, there's no real hint of romance until page 38. It's a slow burner so if you're there for romance hitting you in the face, read something else.

Two side notes, there were a lot of H names in the whole book, not just the one family so it was a little tough to follow, also was I supposed to hate Len at the start because I kind of did?

A solid 4/4.5 stars. I really enjoyed it, it took me back to my school days and it was an easy read. Took me 3 days and I'm a slow reader. A couple of typos but nothing major compared to some books out there! Can't wait to read more from Rhiannon in the future. Follow me on Instagram Literarylouis because I'll post about this and more in the future.

3.5 stars

HHH has everything I want from a best-friends-to-lovers romance: the longing, the angst, the sneaking around, the intimacy.

Henry is a decent guy, but whiny at times. He lacks self-esteem and puts himself down often, but there's no reason why. Both his family and his friend group are loving and supportive. He's overall a competent student. He comes across as particularly whiny esp. in comparison to Len, who struggles with similar feelings of inadequacy, but has actual depth as a character.

(Also, I'm ngl, I couldn't tell Henry's friends apart)

HHH is A+ during the crush + romance parts. Henry acting like a goof every time his arm brushes Len's, his uncertainty if Len feels the same chemistry between them, their stolen moments together? Absolutely delightful.

But: there isn't a real B-plot to break things up. "Henry doesn't know what he wants to do in life" and "Henry falls in love" are both indistinct, vague notions. They need the contrast of a tangible goal to offset them; something with clear goal posts and strategies. There's bits and pieces of Henry's life, but they often feel like filler.

I also felt Wilde was indecisive about tone: sometimes, esp. with the banter, it reads like jauntier mainstream books. Other times, esp. With Len's issues, it reads much moodier. These halves never quite mesh.

Wilde has a solid writing style. The banter between Henry and the guys was funny and lively, and her style is overall quite readable.

Rec'd if you want a clean besties-to-lovers romance with quality longing!

(Also TW, there are at least two HP references!)

(Thank you to Charlesbridge Teen and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review!)

This book was confusing in multiple ways...

The book was missing letters on every page, so sometimes I couldn't even read what a word was and I just had to guess. The characters, other than the two main characters, where extremely difficult to differentiate. Even until the last couple pages of the book I didn't know which friend was supposed to be which friend... They just didn't have enough personality for me to be able to keep them apart. The storyline itself also had me a bit confused.

Anyway yeah, overall a bit confusing, but I appreciated that it was a fast read. It just wasn't for me I guess.

Right off the bat I gotta to say: I really enjoyed this book. The characters, by far my favorite part of the story, felt really special. I just want to wrap Henry up in a comfy blankie and keep him happy and safe at all times. I especially loved Henry's little brother, Hambam (what a nickname!), and the relationship they had with one another and their parents. Also, Grandma Goldie is an absolute icon!
This story was a best friend's to lovers romance interwoven amongst a beautiful coming of age story. We follow Henrey Hamlet (love a good alliteration in a name) and his ever-changing, ever-growing relationship with long-time best friend, Lennon. It's a beautiful story about growing up, whether you are ready for it or not, and Henry Hamlet is decidedly NOT ready for it. Thus, obvious akwardness ensues. This was a really refreshing queer YA that had a perfect fluff to angst ratio. It's a story that could be enjoyed not only by young adults, but by older readers as well.

The characters in this book are fantastic. The main character was relatable and easy to root for. The plot was well-written and managed to be fresh, even while using popular tropes. The romance was wonderful. I absolutely loved the love story. This book was very engaging and I really enjoyed reading it.

I did really like this book- though as a middle aged American woman, I had to go look up some Australian slang. It’s not a typically written romance- it’s got a more ethereal, subtle quality that I really enjoyed.

Cuteness overload and a book to brighten my recently darker days. It was such a pleasure to read about the emotional and identity-related struggles of Henry Hamlet; a very interesting take on self-discovery. And this book brims with numerous great influences, such as the music of the National or Elliot Smith. The characters are so relatable and so true to their motivations that we quickly start to root for them. Moreover, when the book is finished, we are likely to miss having them in our daily lives. I guess what this novel does is what other aspiring YA writers should definitely pay attention to: it discusses an important issue with a bit of a light-hearted attitude; it has a simple but engaging plotline; and it describes people whom we could easily meet in our daily lives. I am very happy that I had the opportunity to discover this Australian YA gem.

3.75 stars!

Henry Hamlet’s Heart is an adorable queer friends to lovers romance with lovable, relatable characters who you will be rooting for the entire time! Beyond the romance, it is also a story of self discovery during one of the most difficult transitions in the life of a teenager, the jump from high school to university. Henry Hamlet’s Heart is sweet, funny, heartfelt, and raw.

My favorite aspect of this book was the characters. Henry and Len were both well developed and real. I felt like I was there with them navigating their feelings and struggles!

I didn’t necessarily dislike anything in this book, however I do feel occasionally some aspects of the book were slightly underdeveloped and I would have liked to see a little more insight in some places. But this was very minor and didn’t take away from the story!

Overall, Henry Hamlet’s Heart was a super sweet YA romance. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a quick feel good read!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

I genuinely enjoyed reading Henry Hamlet’s Heart so much. It’s easy to fall in love with Wilde’s writing style and characters and you can really feel her love of the Brisbane setting come through! I think so many readers will be able to see themselves in Henry and Len (I know I can!) It’s wonderfully relatable and really captured that first love energy and also the pressure of growing up, navigating high school and moving into life after high school.

There was clearly so much thought and love put into all of these characters and the places they take us and I loved going on this journey with them and following Henry and Len’s relationship. It was so easy to root for them!

However there are a few main reasons that this wasn’t a 5 star read for me. The first being that I felt that in my opinion there were too many characters. There seemed to be a lot of characters being introduced who were quite similar to one another and I was struggling to differentiate and create a picture in my mind for some of them for a while. Second, for a book that’s fairly short it did feel like it took a while to get going. I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing as I was still enjoying what I was reading and getting to know the characters! But I was just very aware of the fact that there wasn’t a lot happening for a decent chunk of the book.

Overall I think this was such a lovely story of first love, finding who you are, finding your people and learning that you don’t have to have all the answers right away! I would absolutely recommend this to any YA romance fans!

DNF at 25%
Slow-paced, uninteresting characters and nothing happens up until where I read. I was bored the whole time, so I decided not to continue.

Thank you to Charlesbridge Teen and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this digital ARC of. Henry Hamlet's Heart

As we embark on Pride Month - I knew this book had to be at the top of my list. Mix that with a YA novel that touches on gay confusion, awkward moments, total heartbreak ...and more - this book is so good! You will get sucked in, to the characters, to the story, and the writing; Wilde is so good at creating a narrative that you will not want to step away from! MC Henry is funny, has a quirky group of friends (who need sequels about them lol)....who help to tell this amazing story that kept me wanting more! Great humor, emotion moments that had tear welled up in my eyes. A must read!

3.25⭐️
This a sweet and breezy romedy with a best friends to lovers trope.

The characters are cute and funny. The protagonist is in his final year of high school and is conflicted about his choices for the future. There’s a lot of teen drama and hijinks moving the plot. His family is an adorable and wholesome set of characters. The friend group had a pretty chill and fun dynamic going on.

The descriptions of the settings and the city of Brisbane is fairly well done.

The book packs a good punch of teen angst and yearning. The first half of the book is a massive slow burn.

As much as I wanted to love this book completely, I found a lot of issues I couldn’t ignore.

There’s a couple grammatical errors here and there which will hopefully be fixed in the final print.

The characters are jarringly inconsistent. Especially Len. A lot of the characters differed vastly from the start of the book by the end.

Some of the dialogue comes off as pretentious and unnecessary. Honestly, nobody could talk like that.

There were a lot of important issues brought up in the book. But they never get discussed enough or resolved justly. It’s a lot of showing but no exploring. The relationships never feel complete because we never get to see the moments holding them up.

Although I was a little disappointed I did enjoy reading this book.

*Cor Cordium*

I’d like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC.

Thank you to Netgalley and Charlesbridge for providing me this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My rating is 4.5 stars, but since Goodreads doesn't do halves, I will give it a 4 star rating :)


For an immeasurable stretch of time, we're not Lennon and Hamlet, or two people who want each other, or two people at all. There's never been a proper membrane separating us the way it does other people; we're connected, and it runs so deep. I know, from how much this hurts.
I want to give him all my energy to borrow. To keep. To burn.
I give him whatever he lets me. Let him take whatever he needs.

This was a beautiful book. I absolutely adored it.

The plot was everything I expected it to be, but in a good way. It had the friends-to-lovers trope, with the secret pining and falling for your best friend. To say I loved it is an understatement. The book also takes us down a road of self-discovery, friendships, family love and family drama and so much more. The only thing that kept me from giving this the all out 5 stars, was the fact that the 'conflict' at the end was very quickly solved. I would have loved it if Len gave more of an explanation to Henry, even though I fully understood why the things that happened, happened.

The book was set in high school, but the book didn't focus too much on that which I liked. There were mentions of classes and studying, and a few scenes in their high school as well, but overall the book didn't revolve around the high school setting. We also got to see the characters at their homes with family and each other, and at some other places they visited throughout the book with their friends. It gave a nice diversity of settings and atmosphere.

The characters were fantastic. I honestly would not be able to choose my favorite between Len and Henry. They are both very unique and complex characters, who had great development throughout the book. I also love how we really got to see them be best friends first. We got to experience their dynamic before any real feelings were involved (at least that's what Henry though...). After a few chapters though we get to experience the change in their dynamic through Henry's eyes and I loved it. The way he was so unsure at first, but then slowly started to admit he had feelings for his best friend. One thing I absolutely adored, was how Len fell first. I feel like in most books, it's the person who's point of view we're reading from that falls first, and I like how that wasn't the case here. It was fairly obvious since like, chapter 2 or something, that Len already had feelings for Henry. To me that made everything even better.

Next to Henry and Len we also got some side-characters ofcourse. Henry's family for example. They were awesome and delivered some of the funniest scenes in the book. The dynamic between them was amazing and I loved how supportive they all were of Henry and Len. Than we also have the friends. I'll be honest, I could not for the life of me keep those apart in my head. I never remembered who was who, I only knew 2 were family of each other and one was emo... BUT, I did love them. Together they all made a tight friend group and I loved the traditions they have. We also got Len's family ofcourse. As expected, I hated his dad. What an absolute piece of sh*t. His sister was cute though! I'm sad we didn't get to see more about her since she was away in a big part of the book.

The writing is what often really sucked me in though. This was very beautifully written. Some scenes made my cheeks hurt from smiling, but others made me hold back tears. I think the author did a great job at writing realistic teen boys, with all their angst and fear about trying out their new relationship and (in Henry's case) coming out. I definitely am sad that I could not annotate this book since it's an e-ARC I read on Netgally, because there were so many sentences I wanted to underline. I will probably buy a physical copy when this book comes out so that I can re-read it and finally underline all my favorite scenes and quotes!!

‘Henry Hamlet’s Heart’ is a story with a big heart (pun totally intended)..

We follow Henry and his friends through a time full of changes, where each of them are trying their best to find who they truly are. In the middle of all this, there’s a friendship that grows into something bigger, feelings that were there all along (even if the characters themselves didn’t want to admit them aloud at first).

This book is sweet, a tender story about following your heart and embracing the truth of it. It’s the perfect story for those who love calm queer YA contemporary stories!

Such a sweet story.
I absolutely love the best friends to lovers aspect.
I thought the timing was perfect and the premise worked out really well.
Will be recommending this book to my friends. 😊🌸

Talk about a love story that goes through ups and downs. You never know what will happen next or how the ending will finish. Henry is a quirky character and is the main person of this book with his group of friends. At what point does the line of friendship get crossed? What will the future hold. The story is based in Brisbane (Australia) around the last year of high school and the waves of the student experience. This is the first time ready a book by Rhiannon Wilde and I hope she continues this story somehow.

The type of book features a LGBTQIA+ plot and is similar to coming of age stories such as Love Simon or Heartstoppers. I really good read and really plays on ones emotions.

unfortunately, I just couldn't get into this book. the premise is pretty classic; falling in love with your best friend and all the problems that bring up. I honestly am just not in a very YA mood at the moment.

Henry Hamlet is coming to the end of compulsory education, and is flailing in life, love, and aspirations for the future. Luckily, his best friend Lennon is there to distract him, and when a game of truth or date leads in an unexpected direction, Henry finds himself wading through a whole host of new feelings and experiences as he attempts to make the leap out of awkward adolescence.

I thought the author did such a great job of capturing the atmosphere of a group of older secondary school boys, as well as the yearning ache of wanting to skip those years of uncertainty and become a 'real person' without important decisions resting on your shoulders. This is a slow-paced novel, where the emphasis is more on thoughts and feelings than on the events of the plot, but for me that led to me feeling a little frustrated with how little was happening, especially considering a lot seemed to be happening in the background with Len. I would have been very interested to see a split PoV including Len's perspective on his father's abusive behaviour, and how he understands his feelings for Henry. I think that would have made Len and Lacey's moment at the end of the book feel more triumphant, if there had been more build-up of stakes concerning their father's treatment of Len. With that said, the romantic moments between Henry and Len were lovely, and this is a sweet book of awkward first love and navigating the end of school days.

I am grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC of Henry Hamlet's Heart. These opinions are my own.

This book was so sweet. While it was a bit predictable I still greatly enjoyed it and it was exactly what I wanted it to be. I will definitely read more by this author in the future.