

The majority of the book (around 70%) deals with the fallout of the horror they experienced and the ways it reshaped their worldviews and relationships.

Against all odds, they survive and forge an unlikely and unshakeable bond through their suffering that completely changes the trajectory of their lives. It’s difficult to describe what happens next in much detail and avoid spoilers, so I’ll just say that Cora and Dean are thrust into a scene out of someone’s worst nightmare and as a result, endure a series of horrifying traumas together.

Cora can’t stand Dean, yet when she gets stranded at the bar later that night, she reaches out to him to pick her up when her sister doesn’t answer her phone. Mandy and Dean have been dating since high school and are getting ready to tie the knot in a few weeks.

Īs Still Beating begins, we meet Cora at a bar with her older sister, Mandy, and Mandy’s annoying fiancé, Dean, who are all in their early thirties. The “new” product’s golden seams formed a completely unique pattern, rendering the repaired pottery even more special for wearing its history for everyone to see. It’s the reason that the Japanese practiced the art of Kintsugi, or “golden joinery,” an ancient method of fixing broken pottery by using an adhesive mixed with gold powder to join the pieces back together so that the cracks shone gold. I was so desperate to have someone to discuss it with that I tried to summarize the plot to my husband, who turned to me with his “how did I end up marrying this insane woman?” look in his eye and said, “Why the fuck would you read something about that?!”īecause, in things that have been destroyed and put back together differently, there is a particular kind of unique and moving beauty. I’m not sure that I have ever read a book that wouldn’t let go of me like this one. I read Still Beating almost two weeks ago and just now have been able to piece together my thoughts in a coherent way to be able to write this review. “Every love story is worth writing, no matter how messy it might be.” STILL BEATING, JENNIFER HARTMANN
