Wow! I don't think I've ever read a book quite like this before. With a creative, captivating premise, HERO is a literary love story you won't soon forget. The book begins when Hero's boyfriend asks her to marry him...and she panics, unsure if she wants to be someone's wife. The couple spends a week apart to give Hero time to think about her decision. Over these seven days, through the use of mythology, legend, and the personal stories and memories of Hero and the women in her life, we learn about everything that's informed Hero's choices, and the relationships that have left her grappling with difficult questions. How do you, as a woman, define yourself in a world that caters to men in many ways? Can you truly be yourself when you keep viewing yourself through someone else's eyes? Does being in love with someone else mean that you will never fully be free, that you'll always "belong" to them, not to yourself?

There was something so lyrical, often poetic, about the writing style of this book that had me hooked from the beginning! I was so invested in Hero's journey. She's a fascinating character, because it feels like you really get to know her, her unique story and struggles, yet there's also a universal quality to her. The ambiguity and almost ethereal qualities of the storytelling means that so many readers can see pieces of themselves in Hero. Katie Buckley tackles so many fascinating themes throughout—I particularly liked the exploration of self-discovery, and whether being in a relationship, getting married, having kids, etc. means that you will lose part of yourself or change irrevocably as a person. How do you separate what you want in these situations from what you feel you "should" want, societal pressures? Are you always losing something—the path you could have taken, the person you could have been—by making these complicated choices? Does inviting another person into your life mean that you have to give up parts of your own, that you have to shrink yourself to make them shine brighter? Where do you draw the line? HERO will truly have you thinking and questioning long after you turn the final page.

I will say that while I really enjoyed the writing and narrative style overall, I struggled with it in some aspects—for example, not naming some of the characters meant that it was a little hard to keep track of them at certain points. The lack of detail/specificity was by design, but it still got a bit confusing initially. Otherwise, this was a great debut from Katie Buckley, and I'm interested to see what she writes next! Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC.

I've read a lot of romance novels, but we all know that they aren't real life. This isn't that. It is, what it says on the cover, a love story. It touched me in an unexpected way. It is literary, but less so that I was afraid of it being. Details are omitted where they aren't needed, which leads to untraditional storytelling, but allows the messages to shine through clearer.

This novel spoke to me about what it really is to love someone, and to be with them. As a woman, especially a woman of this time (I am only a year older than Hero) you are raised to want independence. To want your own dreams, your own life, your own personhood; but still, you cannot escape the trap that you are also supposed to eventually be a wife and mother. But you still want to be YOU. This is what Hero is up against as she takes a week to decide if she wants to love and marry a man, the best man she has ever known, and if she has to lose part of herself in the process.

The answer is complicated, and she needs these seven days to work through it. In a similar place in my life, this book reached me, and I felt the weight of her decision. We're always told that love is work and compromise, but how much is really okay? How much is too much? And how do we know before it's too late? And when it isn't too much, how do we make peace with it really being okay?

In the final chapter, Hero tells the story of her mother's friend, a writer, who had a shed to write in away from her husband and sons. You'd think from this, that she needed to be alone to create. But later, when her sons are grown and her husband leaves, she can't write anymore, because her heart isn't in it. Being alone isn't better. It's about balance.

This isn't a romance novel. But it is a love story.