Crooked Heart (Evans) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
In Crooked Heart, Lissa Evans’s absorbing and atmospheric comic novel, another quietly heroic orphan joins the canon….This is a wonderfully old-fashioned Dickensian novel, with satisfying plot twists….Both darkly funny and deeply touching….It’s a crooked journey, straight to the heart.
New York Times Book Review


Evans tidily unfolds a satisfying plot…. But it’s the over-arching development of the lost little boy and the harried woman’s affection and admiration for one another that really tugs the reader’s own heart crooked.... There’s great galloping joy in it.
Independent (UK)


Entertaining.... The story starts in the London blitz, in a dazzling, tragicomic prologue…. Crooked Heart is a dark comedy, moving between drollery, pathos, farce and harrowing moments of tragic insight.
Guardian (UK)


Deceptively complex and utterly charming.
Sunday Mirror (UK)


This autumn’s feel-good novel teams up two unlikely characters at the outbreak of World War II…. Evans has written an old-fashioned comedy of manners, which is heartwarming, without being mawkish, and extremely funny.
Daily Mail (UK)


I try not to say, "If there’s one novel you should read this summer..." but Crooked Heart tempts me to say it.
Scott Simon - NPR


Evans’ exceptionally engaging Crooked Heart brings effervescent wit and oddball whimsy to a venerable formula.... The entire novel is a joy from start to finish: briskly paced, taut and snappy with humor and, ultimately, sweet.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


Noel’s precociousness, combined with the distrust of authority...makes him a difficult child...and though Vera has enough of her own troubles, somehow the two of them—awkwardly but endearingly—find a connection.... [An] appealing blend of sophisticated bravado and naive fragility—all without lapsing into sentimentality.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Evans explores the Blitz during World War II from two utterly inventive perspectives—that of a sharp-minded ten-year-old orphan evacuee and the unscrupulous and desperate 36-year-old suburban widow.... A charming, slanted counterpoint to Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See.  —Christine Perkins, Whatcom Cty. Lib. Syst., Bellingham, WA
Library Journal


A clever orphan and his scam-artist guardian—an odd couple in wartime London—explore the space between legally wrong and morally right. Engaging and comic.... A dark, cherishable, very English comedy about not-so-funny times and events.
Kirkus Reviews