God-Shaped Hole

When Beatrice (Trixie) Jordan answers a personal ad in the paper - “If your intentions are pure I’m seeking a friend for the end of the world.” – she doesn’t know that her whole world is about to change. In Jacob Grace, she finds what she didn’t know what she was looking for: a friend, an ally, a lover. These two creative souls – Trixie makes jewelry, Jacob is a writer – join together so they don’t have to face their demons alone.

I really liked this book, a lot more than I would have thought. It’s not something I normally read – I usually (not always) don’t read books categorized as “romance” or “chick lit” – and honestly, I chose it because I’m a sucker for a beautiful (especially colorful) cover. show more But this book was different. On the surface, it was a love story between Trixie and Jacob: how they met, fell in love, and helped each other through tough times.

But underneath, it was so much more.

God-Shaped Hole is about the journey we each take to fill that “god-shaped hole” (which doesn’t necessarily need to be filled by God) to make our lives feel complete. "We’re all searching for something to fill up what I like to call that big, God-shaped hold in our souls. Some people use alcohol, or sex, or their children, or food, or money, or music, or heroin. A lot of people even use the concept of God itself."

This book was both laugh-out-loud funny and serious, often in the same breath. The characters were well-developed and complex. I loved both Trixie and Jacob – their insecurities, their idiosyncrasies, their personalities. I enjoyed watching the progression of their relationship, from the honeymoon phase to the deep, long-lasting love phase. I actually also liked Trixie’s mother, who had always seemed uptight to Trixie, but really had so much more depth than her daughter ever realized.

The writing itself was beautiful – both subtle and powerful. There were so many great quotes, both beautiful imagery and questions to provoke deep thought. This book would be a great pick for a book club because there are so many layers there to dissect. It’s beautiful, poignant, joyous, uproarious, deep, all mixed into one. It really was a great book.

Thank you to NetGalley and to SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for a copy of this eBook in exchange for an honest review! show less

Living and working in fast-paced LA, Beatrice Jordan is a jewelry designer. Tired of being alone, she responds to a personal ad. On a whim, writer Jacob Grace had posted, “If your intentions are pure, I am seeking a friend for the end of the world”. She could not resist an ad like that.

Perhaps by fate, these two develop a real relationship. They even help each other come to terms with unresolved feelings from their difficult childhoods. That is quite a feat in itself. But, they also awaken new feelings in each other, some that are even harder to tame.

This is a love story for the lonely, quirky, creative people in the world. It speaks to those who are looking for something, someone, to hold in the middle of their hurricane. They seek show more someone that is like them, and they believe, deep down, they are out there.

Fifteen years ago, this book was published by Sourcebooks. With a cult-like following, God-Shaped Hole has survived to become a classic in its own right. Come and read the bittersweet novel that helped define and shape a generation. Celebrate the elements of life and love, because these are the things help us become who we were meant to be. show less

“It was a story about people with dreams. Dreams that never come true,” is a line in God-Shaped Hole about a fictional book a character writes, but it could just as easily describe itself. Jacob and Beatrice, the central lovers in Tiffanie Debartolo’s God-Shaped Hole are “Siamese soul lovers”, as Jacob describes, and of course they are, because they’re made up and fictionally perfect for each other.

The characters are seemingly deep without having actual substance. One loves the particularly not insightful Pete Townsend line “no one respects the flame quite like the fool who’s badly burned”.

And yet, when we experience a deeply yearning love for the first time, don’t we feel this way? Like we are MEANT for this, and show more we say the stupidest things. Debartolo’s strength seems to be in converting a certain kind of indelible tragic emotion outside of the exact words she’s using. It remains on the surface, though. This is all rough draft writing. It needs a second pass, or a fifth pass, probably.

And yet, again. At the end, past the tragedy that permeates the novel, I feel those emotions and loss and sorrow. The characters are not much more than caricatures, but sometimes that’s enough to tap into the well of human emotions.

Lines I liked, for one reason or another:

- Was it claustrophobia of my apartment, or of the couple-hundred mile radius I helped populate?
- Where the fuck have you been all my life?
- Sometimes the most consequential moments in my life originate from a state of completely witless human auto-pilot.
- I usually prefer my company to any old idiot…
- …something about it made my heart hurt.
- …some people feel things too deeply.
- The contentment on his face said he found value in it, wasn’t plagued by it like I was.
- “It’s one of my favorite songs ever.” He stressed the ‘ever’ like it hurt.
- I felt a charge when he said that. Like he’d rubbed his stocking-feet on carpet and touched my cheek.
- Kids, dogs, and middle-aged divorcées like me.
- “Wait until we move to the Mississippi delta. Then you’ll get [William Faulkner].”
- I didn’t know how to act like a normal person and be in love at the same time.
- [The coyotes] sang back and forth, then together at the same time, like they were performing a tragic duet.
- It was mating season, and the [humpback whales] were singing to attract their lovers. I asked him why we could hear them but not see them. “They’re a thousand miles away.”
- “I like it. I like the suffering.”
- “People have reasons for what they do. And even if those reasons can’t be justified, that doesn’t make them bad people, just flawed. You have to remember someone or something has hurt them too.”
- “We were young, too young to be a family.”
- Reading is the best way to learn how to write.
- How many times in your life and you allowed to say “if only…?”
- I was never cut out to be a father.
- That kid’s got heart. It’s written all over his face. But it’ll be the death of him.
- A connection takes time.
- It drives me crazy when people know me well enough to remind me what I believe.
- You can’t put life on pause and then catch up with it later when you have more energy to give.
- It’s never the truth that changes.
- “I love you. You know that, right?”
- I missed my unforgettable friend. show less

5/5 stars

I'm going to be honest with you... When I picked up this book, I had no idea what to expect. I thought is was your everyday romantic comedy, but what I got was something extraordinary. The characters were unique and the storyline was witty, romantic, heartbreaking, and inspirational.

It is a story about Beatrice, a woman in her late twenties, looking for something more from life. When a personal ad in the newspaper catches her eye she thinks what the hell and dials the number listed. She never expected the guy to be her soul mate. When they meet in person there is a quirky kind of love at first sight. Both have outrageous personalities with crazy interpretations of life.

The romance is fast paced and they quickly move in with show more one another. Things are great. Their sexual connection is fierce and their mental connection is on point. Something changes though... Jacob sees his father after many years of absence and is thrown off by what he comes face to face with. His whole outlook changes and he turns into a bitter person that leaves Trixie to wonder where he goes when he leaves and doesn't return for weeks. Their romance is still there, but Trixie is forced to move forward and let Jacob face his problems on his own.


*SPOILER*
The ending, GAH, the ending.... It was gut wrenching! Everything was just starting to get better and them BAM. All of sudden, Trixie's nightmares become reality. My heart ached, but I felt inspired. It showed us that we must make each day in our life memorable. That no matter what we always should chase what we believe in. To never let absent relationships eat us alive and to always put the present first and foremost.

I HIGHLY recommend this one to all readers that like a funny, emotional, inspirational story with some sexiness! show less

Not a bad way to pass a power outtage! Probably the best, most moving, utterly fantastic book I've read in some time. I enjoy most of the books I read, but this book went beyond enjoyment . . . There were times when I would have to stop reading, close the book, and just pause to reflect on my emotions. Yes, it was that good. I was in love with Jacob from the beginning and I cried like the emotional wreck of girl that I am at the end. And I loved every second of it.

To truly appreciate this book, I think you need to be living it. This story touched me so profoundly that I am in awe.

I won't read it again. I can't read it again. However it is forever ingrained in my mind as a classic love story.

Heart-wrenchingly beautiful.

In contrast to Charles Baxter's The Feast of Love, which I read recently and which I thought was an excellent examination of love and relationships in both a realistic and affirming way, this meditation on a single intense relationship felt myopic and trite to me. I think people who react to it positively (and many seem to react very positively) are looking to read a contemporary romance novel in some ways. And I don't say that to disparage romance novels, but rather to explain why I did not enjoy my reading of this novel. In many ways it is a contemporary love story in the vein of, well, Love Story, told from the perspective of a female protagonist. I think the viewpoint and the emotional energy of the book make it very attractive for show more many female readers, so take this for what it's worth from the male perspective. In the end, I felt nothing about these characters except that I had spent too long watching them love each other. Their experience may have had great meaning for them, but that does not actually make the story meaningful. show less