Publishers Weekly
★ 12/06/2021
“Much has been written about the science of falling in love, but very little about what happens on the other side,” writes journalist Williams (The Nature Fix) in this show-stopping, offbeat story about the science of heartbreak. Deciding to unravel “what the heck had happened to the woman I used to be” after her 25-year marriage ended, and aiming to understand how “heartbreak changes our neurons, our bodies, and our sense of ourselves,” Williams visits psychologists, geneticists, and others researching emotion and behavior. She cites studies showing divorce to be a greater health risk than smoking; hears about experiments on monogamous prairie voles, in which those separated from their partners produce more stress hormones; and learns about “broken-heart syndrome,” the symptoms of which are similar to a heart attack. Along the way, she fills out reams of health evaluations and tries dozens of healing methods, including taking Ecstasy (she hallucinates becoming a tree and her ex-husband “a strangler fig”) and a solo whitewater rafting trip (“I was flowing away from the broken bad lands of my marriage”). Unflagging research—she even flies to London to interview Britain’s first “minister of loneliness”—and the author’s vulnerability make for an impressive and moving survey. This is a courageous, whirlwind tale of healing and self-discovery. (Feb.)
Outside - Elizabeth Hightower Allen
"As a guide to science, Williams is the best kind—a hot adventure-nerd goddess, by turns fascinating and funny. The real magic happens, however, when she turns that eye inward, revealing herself as destroyed, vulnerable, and tentatively optimistic, sometimes all at once."
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak
"In Heartbreak [Williams] reprises [the] determined, deep-dive reporting [of The Nature Fix], this time seeking the same healing for her shattered self... This is one of the joys of reading a gifted science journalist: You learn so much stuff without having to study it yourself... [A] wise and brave book."
Sebastian Modak
"[Readers] will learn as much from Williams’s intellectual rigor as from her fearlessness in surviving a broken heart."
Bonnie Tsui
"This surprisingly frank and funny book is what happens when a formidable science journalist turns her powers of observation and inquiry on her own broken heart."
Helen Fisher
"What a powerful book. Williams captures the heartache of divorce and the crooked road back to living. Colorful, imaginative and poignant—Heartbreak tells a gripping story of courage, sex, and adventure packed with all the newest hard science on romance and attachment. I’ve studied love for over 40 years and I was taking notes. It’s a magnificent, wise, and remarkable read!"
Katie Couric Media - Zibby Owens
"This innovative book will have you rooting for Williams to understand her own body’s pain—and, by extension, all of ours."
Scientific American - Dana Dunham
"An engrossing survey of the latest research on the cardiology, neurology and genomics of lost love punctuated by the author’s many experiments with healing... Williams’s journey through her pain is by turns wrenching, fascinating, funny, and, for so many of us, deeply relatable."
Terry Tempest Williams
"Heartbreak by Florence Williams is a graceful account of losing a marriage and finding another way of being. With vulnerability and veracity, Williams seeks various modes of understanding the physicality of loss. Whoever has felt the blistering heat of a broken heart will thank Florence Williams for a clear moving river of discoveries"
Deborah Copaken
"I tore through this book, unable to do anything else. Even sleep. Florence Williams has taken the most common form of psychic pain––heartbreak, her heartbreak––and transformed it into a meditative masterwork on what it means to live a good life, with biological and genetic markers and dozens of scientific studies to back up her claims. Awe: remember this word. You will feel it at the end of this book, and it could save your life."
BookPage (starred review)
"Edifying and entertaining... [A] fascinating, memorable quest to survive and thrive in an often-heartbreaking world."
People Magazine
"Fascinating."
San Francisco Chronicle - Alexis Burling
"A masterful blend of investigative reporting and personal narrative, chock-full of fascinating insights, gorgeous nature writing and an ample helping of compassion (some of which Williams deservedly reserves for herself)."
Library Journal
01/01/2022
While much has been written about love—both falling into it and the intense psychological changes that occur during its first stages—the same cannot be said for heartbreak. Williams (Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History) works to ameliorate this by walking readers through her own divorce and her navigation of single life, sharing custody of her children with her ex, and getting back on the dating scene. Perhaps the most compelling feature of this work is Williams's foray into the science of heartbreak. Williams uses her own body as an example of the physical manifestations of grief and trauma. After her divorce, she developed adult-onset type-1 diabetes and later learned that so-called "divorce diabetes" is not entirely uncommon. The author describes undergoing blood tests to track her grief's impact on the molecular level, experimenting with psychedelics, and much more in this heartfelt romp through her process of rediscovery and the science of heartbreak. Alongside her own story, Williams includes stories of others navigating divorce or separation. VERDICT Readers will appreciate Williams's candid portrayal of her personal journey and the book's understanding of heartbreak's impact on the human body.—Mattie Cook
Kirkus Reviews
2021-10-07
A deep dive into the meaning of heartbreak.
At 50, Williams, a contributing editor at Outsideand science writer for other publications, found herself “completely, existentially freaked” by a divorce from the man she had been with since she was 18. She immediately sought to make sense of her pain by researching heartbreak, but she discovered scant research about “what happens on the other side” of falling in love. In this three-part book, Williams draws on personal experiences, readings, and interviews to piece together her shattered emotions and explain the “complex emotional trauma” behind romantic heartbreak. The early emotional fallout of her divorce contextualizes the observations she makes in the first section. As Williams awkwardly attempted to “regain my sexual confidence” and push the boundaries of her limited romantic experiences, she also explored studies on such topics as the relationship between love and heart health and the power of awe as a tool to help the newly single “see themselves as part of a larger, meaningful reality.” In the second section, the author probes the impact of heartbreak on the body. Unexpectedly diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, she found research that showed how the stress of heartbreak and the resulting loneliness can lead to physiological problems at the cellular level. Williams then put the idea that awe can heal into practice and went on nature getaways and canoeing and rafting trips in the Rocky Mountains to help her reboot her overtaxed nervous system and “jump-start the process of calming the fuck down.” In the third section, Williams records her late-stage healing experiments with psychedelic drugs as well as an eye-opening visit to the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia. Complex and thoughtfully researched, this book appealingly chronicles healing from emotional loss and offers fascinating scientific insights into the mechanics and impacts of romantic grief.
A provocative and rewarding reading experience.
