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Heft

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 4,575 ratings · 1,000 reviews

Former academic Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn't left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away, in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich school and pins his hopes on what seems like a promising baseball career—if he can untangle himself from his family drama. The link between this unlikely pair is Kel’s moth...more

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published January 23rd 2012 by W. W. Norton & Company

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Jun 17, 2012 Scruffy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Heft tells the parallel stories of Arthur Opp and Kel Keller. Arthur is a severely overweight man who hasn’t left his house in ten years. Kel is an eighteen year old with a very troubled mother. Both characters are sad, lonely and desperately in need of help. The subject matter of Heft sounds very heavy and the story really does carry a large emotional weight. However it never feels overly sentimental. It’s actually quite a gripping read because of the likeable but realistically flawed character...more

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Mar 16, 2012 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

One might suspect that a book written about a grotesquely obese academic and a coming-of-age teenager would fall into the “been there, done that” category or at the very least,be reductive in its approach to its characters.

HEFT avoids those pitfalls. The key characters – Arthur Opp, the reclusive and obese professor who has not left his home in over a decade and Kel Keller, the son of the student that charmed Arthur many years ago, are quirky, engaging, and so human they will touch your heart.

Ar...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Piperitapitta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autrici-usa, letteratura-usa, romanzo, my-e-book

Incroci.

Qualche giorno fa, in uno dei miei spostamenti in macchina, sento alla radio Marco Missiroli parlare di questo romanzo.
Ricordo il punto esatto in cui ero, la via, l'angolo dove stavo svoltando, mentre non ricordo affatto da dove stessi tornando. Ma tornavo a casa, di questo ne sono certa.
Spesso mi capita di sentir parlare di libri alla radio, quasi mai poi ne ricordo il titolo, qualche volta lo appunto tra le note del telefono, a volte cerco di ricordarlo, invano, a mente; ma questo mi a...more

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Feb 07, 2012 SheilaRaeO rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Liz Moore has written a book so heartbreakingly honest, I felt I was listening to the characters talk directly to me. Their voices were so real. She managed to convey the inner most thoughts and emotional conflict of both a teenage boy with dreams of the major leagues and a 600 pound reclusive professor who hasn’t been outside his home in a decade. How their lives relate to each other is through the boy’s mother, once a student of the professor, now a sick and lonely alcoholic. This book was one...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Leona rated it 4 of 5 stars

I bought this book because my cousin, who recently passed away, was a very large man and lived a solitary life. I'm not saying he was lonely, but he was alone. So when I read about this book and its character, Arthur Opp, who is also a very large man and, without a doubt, a very lonely man, I bought the book immediately. The first chapter of the book is wonderfully captivating and I had very high hopes for the rest of the book. The book is as much about Arthur as it is about Kel, the teenage son...more

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May 14, 2012 Lindsay (Little Reader Library) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourite-fiction, literary-fiction

'I would remind myself of how many people there were like me, & how many people fall into the despair of loneliness...'

This is a review where I have to be careful not to be over the top, because, plainly said, I loved this book so, so much.

Arthur Opp, at around 550 pounds, is extremely overweight, and he hasn't left his large home in Brooklyn in ten years. He was an academic, but no longer works, supporting himself through money from a father he never sees, and ordering everything from food...more 'I would remind myself of how many people there were like me, & how many people fall into the despair of loneliness...'

This is a review where I have to be careful not to be over the top, because, plainly said, I loved this book so, so much.

Arthur Opp, at around 550 pounds, is extremely overweight, and he hasn't left his large home in Brooklyn in ten years. He was an academic, but no longer works, supporting himself through money from a father he never sees, and ordering everything from food to books online and having it all delivered to his door. He tells us his home was once 'very lovely inside and out', but has now fallen 'into a sort of haunted disrepair', and he hasn't seen the upper floors in a decade. His only real friendship, since his friend Marty passed away, is an infrequent correspondence with an ex-student of his, Charlene Turner, and the novel commences with a frank letter that he is composing to her.

Kel Keller is a talented baseball player in his last year of highschool. His mother, Charlene, wants him to consider college, but he is not academically minded and is instead aiming for a place with a major league team straight out of school. His life isn't the seemingly easy, privileged existence of his fellow students at Pells Landing. He lives in Yonkers, and commutes to the prestigious school everyday, having a place there only because his mother used to work there. But his mother not only no longer works, she can no longer cope with life, and spends her days drunk for the most part, something which Kel has had to live with, and hide. Charlene writes to her old acquaintance Arthur Opp, asking if maybe he could advise her son Kel about colleges.

The story is told alternately by Arthur and Kel, both of whom are endearing and wonderful voices. Arthur and Charlene connected as two lonely souls. She told him once how she felt she was invisible. He tells us 'I am one of the world's lonely', and that he 'felt destined for solitude' right from the beginning of his life, before then even, he was 'very certain that one day it would find me, so when it did I was not surprised & even welcomed it.' He has ways of consoling himself, through food especially, and has imagined that there is 'an oversoul of loneliness', a way that all those who are lonely in the world are somehow connected, and there is a reason for it.

'There was a delicious romance in being utterly alone, & I told myself I was nobler for it, & that there was a purpose to my solitude, O there must be.'

Liz Moore has captured how loneliness feels. How a person can withdraw from the world and years can pass by, spent in this solitude. In Arthur and Kel, she has created two wonderful, damaged, loveable characters whose lives are gradually drawn closer together through the strand that connects them; the life of one woman, herself lonely and destroyed. Slowly, their lives begin to shift. The appearance in Arthur's life of Yolanda signifies his first real contact with the outside world for a long time. An unlikely but wonderful friendship begins.

Meanwhile, the huge change in his life, partway through the story, takes Kel full circle, sees him spiralling down into despair, and leaves him longing 'to collapse into myself until I no longer exist, I want to live in my mother's house and never go out.' This passage sounds like Arthur. Kel wants to isolate himself from the world now. Are these two very different people actually rather alike? What has happened to make Kel feel this way? What will happen to them both?

The story moves along beautifully, it gripped me from the very start; it has surprises for us along the way, and is enjoyable and very poignant. I felt that the author really cared about these characters. It is a story filled with sadness and hope, and told in an intimate, warmhearted way. I loved, cared about, rooted for and was thoroughly convinced by Arthur and Kel and their lives throughout.

Thank you for a really brilliant book Liz Moore. The characters have stayed with me, and this story is certainly in my top reads of the year so far. (less)

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Apr 30, 2013 Mary Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-group-favs

This book is sort of an underachiever and was really good! It's a story about some very lonely people and how their lives change when they reach out to each other. Arthur Opp is a morbidly obese man in his 50's. As he has gained weight he retired from a college teaching position and finally became completely housebound. A former student, Charlene,stayed in touch with Arthur for years, but finally dropped contact. When she reaches out to Arthur again, she has no idea of his circumstances, and he...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Gina Valdez rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have been excited to read Heft since it got many accolades at the end of last year. Overall I wasn't disappointed. It seems to mainly be a story of regret. A regret of things you do not say, or actions you do not take. Regrets of behaviors, compulsions, and not seizing opportunities when you have the chance. The three main characters are well written. There is Arthur, an obese man, whose regrets and depression are so intertwined with his addiction to food. The author really made you understand...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Yolanda Lockhart-howe rated it 3 of 5 stars

The more I think about this book, in the two weeks since I finished it, the more flawed it becomes. There was so much to like. Three characters that I was rooting for deeply, even when one couldn't bear the weight of life any more and left, suddenly.

I love ambiguity in my endings. I hate authors (or film directors) that don't trust me enough to tie up some of the loose ends. But ambiguity is not what I experienced when finishing this book. Rather, it was the sense that I had been given hundreds...more

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Jan 20, 2013 Jt O'Neill rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was completely captured by this novel. The main characters appealed to me and I came to care very much about them. Arthur is a recluse who, at first appears to be happy with his life as is. He was a college professor but now lives alone and has not left his house in ten years. I will say that part of me envies his life! Okay, not that fact that he is grossly obese (in excess of 500 pounds but he doesn't have a scale to tell him how much) but his independence, his leisurely pace of life. He ca...more

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Dec 04, 2012 AJ Conroy marked it as to-read

At first glance, the two protagonists of Liz Moore's second novel, Heft, seem so dissimilar that it's hard to believe they even belong in the same book. Arthur Opp once taught literature to college students. Now he is 58, a recluse weighing 550 pounds, living in the house in which he grew up. Kel Keller is handsome and popular, an extremely talented high school baseball player who is hoping to make it to the bigs. Because I don't believe in giving anything away about the plot, all I will say is...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Theresa rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 28, 2012 Jodi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-audiobooks, audiobook, ll12

Arthur Opp is a former professor, housebound now because of his weight and his feelings about it, is brought back to life, so to speak, when a former student contacts him out of the blue after years of silence. Suddenly Arthur comes alive, hires a housekeeper, starts paying attention to his eating habits, all in the hopes of a reunion with this student. It was always platonic and yet it was not. But on her side all is not well. She desperately wants him to help her high school aged son get into...more

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Aug 18, 2012 Joyce rated it 3 of 5 stars

In the novel Heft, the author Liz Moore weaves together the stories of a mother and son and a man named Arthur Opp who weighs 500 pounds plus and has become a recluse. Years before when he was still functioning in the outside world, he developed a friendship with a young woman named Charlene Turner. She went no further with her college but kept in touch with Arthur for several years through correspondence. The story begins with Arthur receiving a letter from Charlene asking him to help her 17 ye...more In the novel Heft, the author Liz Moore weaves together the stories of a mother and son and a man named Arthur Opp who weighs 500 pounds plus and has become a recluse. Years before when he was still functioning in the outside world, he developed a friendship with a young woman named Charlene Turner. She went no further with her college but kept in touch with Arthur for several years through correspondence. The story begins with Arthur receiving a letter from Charlene asking him to help her 17 year old son. The existence of this son comes as a surprise because she had never mentioned her son in her letters to him. However, Arthur has also been dishonest in his correspondence with her never telling her about leaving his job as college professor and ending up a recluse because of his weight. He has written her falsehoods making it appear he was living a normal life. The arrival of this letter begins a transformation in Arthur's life which begins with him hiring a 19 year old Hispanic girl to clean up his house which he has allowed to become a disaster inside. They form a friendship and she begins to draw him out of the lifestyle he had imposed on himself. During the years since Arthur last saw Charlene, not only has she had a son but has also deteriorated into a non-functioning alcholic after developing lupus and ends up committing suicide near the end of the novel. Despite her failures, she has managed to raise her son Kel on her own since Kel's father left when Kel was 4 years old. Kel has a love-hate relationship with her, loving her but also despising and deeply ashamed of her behavior and their home. Kel has excelled in athletics but his life falls apart after his mother attempts to commit suicide and eventually dies in the hospital. In the end, he does reach out to Arthur because of Arthur's contact with his mother. By this time, Arthur has begun to lose weight and has planned his first social function in at least 10 years. The author alternates between writing the novel from Arthur's point of view and Kel's point of view. She does a good job of developing their characters but never does give the reader much insight into Charlene. I was very disappointed in the end because it completely left the reader dangling as to the outcome of Arthur and Kel meeting. I felt there were some definite loose ends in the story. (less)

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Aug 16, 2012 Kathleen Q rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I was feeling okay about this book, but then the whole date rape scene happened and I didn't feel bad for Kel anymore. It's never really addressed either. The only reason it's "bad" is because he slept with the "wrong" girl. The author - a WOMAN- writes about how the boy can tell the girl is scared and wanted to stop, but he didn't care, he just kept going anyway. Um. Okay. And he doesn't feel guilty. At all. She just cries and tries to disappear but then the main character's friends just laugh...more

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Aug 11, 2012 Becky Trombley rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anne

Recommended to Becky by: Nancy

Life has never been easy for Professor Arthur Opp. To cope, he wraps a double cocoon around himself in the form of many extra pounds and the safety of his Brooklyn childhood home. In the age of the internet, he finds he can survive without ever stepping beyond his front stoop. The groceries are delivered, and he pays the paper delivery boy extra to make sure the paper hits the top step every morning. Weighing between 500 and 600 lbs, it is too difficult for him to navigate the stairs leading to...more

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Jun 27, 2012 Mmtimes4 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Former academic Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn't left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away, in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich school and pins his hopes on what seems like a promising baseball career if he can untangle himself from his family drama. The link between this unlikely pair is Kel s mother, Charlene, a former student of Arthur s. After nearly two decades of silence, it is Charlene s unexpected phone call to Ar...more

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Jun 21, 2012 Kim Herrington rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-for-ya

Arthur Opp is a former college professor. He weighs over 500 pounds, has no friends, isn’t in touch with his family, and hasn’t left his Brooklyn house in a decade. Kel Keller is the teenage son of Charlene Turner, a former student of Opp’s. Charlene hasn’t worked for some time and practically never leaves her house anymore. Charlene and Arthur had exchanged letters occasionally throughout the years, but they were not really part of one another’s lives. Charlene surprises Arthur with a call requ...more

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Jun 08, 2012 Ann rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book grew on me. I have to say, right off, that I "listened" to it. I think that really does have a huge impact on a "reading" and whether you like it or not. When I say "grew on me" it implies I didn't like it in the beginning and that's just not true. Perhaps I had to get used to the narrator's voice.

I stumbled upon this book in the library's downloadable media catalog. I had never heard of it which surprised me because I read Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal pretty faithfully. I h...more

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May 12, 2012 Paula rated it 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved this book. One of the main characters feels like an Anne Tyler creation - with the prerequisite Imperfections and - yet a loving person underneath the HEFT of his outward appearance and hermit-like existance.

Can we overcome our own insecurities and fears to reach out to others -- even if we may be rejected or hurt? What is family - what is love?

"All my life I have heard it said that you can't chose your family, and all my life I have lamented this fact as true and unfair. Bu...more

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May 10, 2012 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audible, best-of-2012

Fabulous character development, so honest, tragic, and very real. The audible narration of this book pushes it up from 4 stars to 5, definitely the preferred way to enjoy this novel. The novel is told from the two main character's perspectives alternating, not every chapter, more in large blocks, then switching back & forth more closer to the end.

Arthur is a 58 year old former professor who is very obese (over 500 lbs) and has become a shut-in, living in a brownstone in Brooklyn (family mone...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Book Him Danno rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, books-sent-by-author-publisher-for

How can two seemingly opposite people be so alike? That is the question in Heft. Two different people ultimately finding salvation in each other.

Arthur Opp is a extremely obese former college professor who never leaves his house or has any relationships besides what is to be found on-line. Kel Keller is a vibrant athletic teenager going to one of the most affluent schools around. Yet through this wonderful book Heft Liz Moore manages to weave these two lives together to show how they are the sam...more How can two seemingly opposite people be so alike? That is the question in Heft. Two different people ultimately finding salvation in each other.

Arthur Opp is a extremely obese former college professor who never leaves his house or has any relationships besides what is to be found on-line. Kel Keller is a vibrant athletic teenager going to one of the most affluent schools around. Yet through this wonderful book Heft Liz Moore manages to weave these two lives together to show how they are the same guy. Both are abandoned by their fathers at a young age, both are subjected to dysfunctional mothers, and ultimately both do not feel they belong in the lives they have.

Arthur’s answer is to shut himself away from the world and slowly eat himself to death. He manages to keep some relationships working through a correspondence of lies, especially with the one person who thought him a hero. His former student, almost girlfriend, the mother of young Kel.

Kel finds himself adrift in the world he enjoys, because he is a poor boy with an ill mother who is only allowed into the society he currently enjoys, the very rich, because of his mother’s former job and his athletic abilities. But much like Arthur he has reality rushing forth to meet him, he has to face how alone he really is. Not fitting into the life he has.

Luckily Kel’s mother Charlene saw the writing on the wall and gives her son one last push out of his current path in life. Through manipulation and some lies she shoves him right towards Arthur. The beauty of this book is how through small and simple things greatness can be achieved. The prospect of this meeting allows Arthur to make small changes in his life, slowly opening him up to what could be; teaching him the meaning of family and friends. For Kel it spurs him to dig into the questions that were always left unasked. Who is his father, who is his family? Plus he faces his biggest fear that he is alone and that nobody could love him. He also learns what a friend is, and yes, that it is possible for him to have them.

Heft is a beautiful story of healing, of two people able to save each other through compassion. The whole book builds up to the meeting between our two heroes, but by then they are both on a new path. The book left e wanting more, to see Arthur and Kel working together for redemption.(less)

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Apr 03, 2012 Melanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. The writing style was very unique, and I enjoyed the stylized conversations as well as the pov. There were times I wasn't sure who was narrating the next chapter, but sufficient clues and dialogue were evidence enough. I was intrigued by the ending in particular. It was enough of a surprise and yet, a perfect ending for where the characters were in their life process. Major props to Liz Moore here because in my opinion, the ending is the hardest to write. So many good...more

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Jun 22, 2012 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes you come across a book that is filled with people you will not soon forget. I love a good storyteller and this book held my attention throughout. As the book ends, you want to know more ... you want to be invited to the dinner party ... to join this unlikely "family" for the evening. You are not ready for this story to end.
Former professor, Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and has not left his Brooklyn home since 9/11. Twenty miles away 17-year old Kel Keller lives in Yonkers but attends a...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. Liz Moore's two main characters - Arthur and Kel, are basically good people who are in difficult situations. Arthur is extremely overweight and agoraphobic. He's battling painful memories from the past that have basically kept him locked in a lonely existence for his entire adult life. Kel is a high school student and talented baseball player who shoulders the burden of caring for his physicially and emotionally ill mother, and also struggling to maintain the appearan...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Heft, takes place in Brooklyn, NY. Arthur Opps is a college professor many years ago. He is now 58 years old. He is a shut in because of his weight. He weighs 550 lbs. Thanks to technology he can order his necessary items through the internet, such as his clothes, books, magazines without going out the door. He dreams about all the luscious delicacies of food. What it tastes, feels and describes them to us. He is a lonely, reclusive big man. Without any connection with anyone. He's family has pa...more

Heft, takes place in Brooklyn, NY. Arthur Opps is a college professor many years ago. He is now 58 years old. He is a shut in because of his weight. He weighs 550 lbs. Thanks to technology he can order his necessary items through the internet, such as his clothes, books, magazines without going out the door. He dreams about all the luscious delicacies of food. What it tastes, feels and describes them to us. He is a lonely, reclusive big man. Without any connection with anyone. He's family has passed away, without brothers, sisters, and friends to speak of. The only thing he looks forward to is letters from a student, Charlene through the years has sent to him.

While Arthur was still teaching, both him and another student Charlene found comfort with each other in their lonely lives. During the one semester while he told they become close, but not intimate.
But the school suspected that Arthur became involved with her.

Charlene and Arthur were two lost souls. Both were sad and lonely people, who spent hours talking over the course of the semester. When the class was finished, Charlene never took another course, but began to write Arthur letters. First he was rather shocked, but when he lost his job soon after, to him she seemed like the only friend he had.
Two of these lonely people found comfort in each other. They were both awkward, and different.
The letters stopped coming. But, then in present tense Charlene asked a favor of Arthur. Would you help my son, Kel Keller, a high school student. Since he is a college, or was a college professor would you help him with deciding about his future.
Arthur decides he must clean up his house before inviting Charlene and her son for a visit. He calls a cleaning agency and meets Yolanda. He need her to straighten and clean the house. He has had no reason to clean. Now that Yolanda has come to help straighten each visit. This picks up his spirits.

Then when the story alternates to present day. Charlene was the VP secretary of the high school. Charlene seems to like to be around educated people. She wants her son to grow up to be smart and go to college. Not to become a baseball pro without education.

Then when Charlene divorces her life somehow goes downhill. She starts drinking, and looses her job. She develops a chronic illness.

The story alternates between Arthur, Charlene, Kel, and Yolanda. It is like at times reading a short story. But, I did like the character development. The story at times is sad, but then puts a smile on your face. You will realize at the end when the story connects to each other. It becomes a OH-YAH moment.

Heft is about a young teen age boy, how he grows up to find himself. To understand the actions of his mother.
Heft, will make you wonder what family really is. What is a family? You will care about all these dysfunctional people with all their flaws. How they can pull it together to become whole. How these Lonely, sad people become misfit and fit with someone who cares. It is not a story that is wrapped in a pretty bow. You have to come to your own conclusions.
I loved the last paragraph:

Instead I walked to my front door& opened it. I peered out into the world. The street was quiet and nothing moved. I opened the glass outer door & walked to the outer stoop. A car rolled by, looking for parking,& for a moment I grew nervous.& excited but it was not the boy. I stood still then & put my arms about myself. O what will happen now I asked. But I was alone, and found I could not answer. (less)

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Jul 02, 2012 Paul Lunger rated it 4 of 5 stars

Liz Moore's "Heft" is a story that almost feels incomplete in a way due to an ending that doesn't work for me. The story itself is a parallel tale of Arthur Opp a former college professor who has a weight issue & hasn't left his house in a decade & of Kel Keller a high school senior whose mother, Charlene Lindsay, causes him more trouble than normal. There is a connection between the 2 as Kel's mother is a former student of Arthur's. The title of the story can almost be as much about the...more

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Jun 27, 2012 Kerri rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I finished this book last night, immediately began to miss the characters and even imagined them as they might live beyond the end of the story. Heft is skillfully told in two points of view. One is that of Arthur Opp, an overweight shut-in and former college professor. The other is that of Kel Keller, a high school all-star athlete and caretaker of his drunken mother. Although seemingly from entirely different backgrounds, these two characters have much in common, and Liz Moore weaves their sto...more

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Apr 13, 2012 Danna rated it 3 of 5 stars

Heft is the story of three lives intertwined. Arthur Opp is an obese agoraphobic living alone in his Brooklyn home, which is financed by his trust fund. Before Arthur's mental and physical decline, he had been a college professor. While teaching, he became intimately close with his student, Charlene. After Charlene left school, they continued to write letters to each other for many years. The third character is Charlene's 17-year-old son, Kel Keller, star athlete at the ritzy Pells Landing publi...more Heft is the story of three lives intertwined. Arthur Opp is an obese agoraphobic living alone in his Brooklyn home, which is financed by his trust fund. Before Arthur's mental and physical decline, he had been a college professor. While teaching, he became intimately close with his student, Charlene. After Charlene left school, they continued to write letters to each other for many years. The third character is Charlene's 17-year-old son, Kel Keller, star athlete at the ritzy Pells Landing public high school.

We learn early on that Charlene is someone with big dreams that have fallen short: Kel describes her as a broken alcoholic who hasn't worked in years, isolated in their shoddy Yonkers apartment. The relationship between Kel and Charlene is similar to most alcoholic parent-child relationships in its codependency and love/hate sentiment. Arthur, pen pal from afar, has little idea that Charlene's life is disintegrating.

The fourth most important character in the book was my favorite, Yolanda, Arthur's newly hired, 19-year-old cleaning woman. Her attitudes and actions are wonderful and believable, and the relationship growing between her and Arthur is heart warming.

I had mixed feelings about Heft. There were parts I loved where I felt I couldn't put the book down, and others where I felt frustrated and I wanted things to move along faster. Like a movie where you keep waiting for the star-crossed lovers' to intersect paths, I kept waiting for the novel's climax. As I got closer to the story's end, I became even more engrossed, and was, frankly, rather disappointed with the ending itself. That's all I say to avoid spoiling.

Favorite quotes:
Arthur on why he reads obituaries: "& I told her I thought of it as an act of service, a way of commemorating & respecting. To think of each person individually, just for a moment, & to contemplate each life. The lonely ones especially, the childless or left behind. It is my church-because I do not go" (286)

"The closest to Charlene I ever felt was the very first time we met outside of school-the one time I helped her with her coat. If I could have helped her with her coat for hours, for the rest of her life, I would have" (340)(less)

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Mar 12, 2012 Melissa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved this book. Heft is about a depressed, alcohol-addicted mother and her athletic son; a former teacher-turned-overweight recluse; a pregnant young house cleaner; and over-privileged high school students. It's about being so overweight that you don't leave your house for a decade. It's about trying to overcome the parents and the neighborhood and the economic circumstances you were born into. It's about some people giving up on life, and about others who refuse to. Every characte...more

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An exceptonal book - a no regrets spending the time reading book.	4	29	Feb 04, 2013 07:04pm
Critical Era: Author Appearance: Liz Moore!	2	14	May 30, 2012 10:36am
Critical Era: Heft gets the Kirkus star!	1	17	May 30, 2012 06:52am
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Quotes from Heft

“We talk for a very long time and I ask her if it gets easier and she says not really, just different. A different duller kind of hurt, the kind that doesn't surprise you anymore.
I ask what her parent were like when it happened and she says they have never been the same.” — 5 people liked it

“...this idea I had of an oversoul of loneliness. A connectedness among the world's lonely that I could turn to when I was very low. There was a delicious romance in being utterly alone, & I told myself I was nobler for it, & that there was a purpose to my solitude, O there must be.” — 4 people liked it

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title link	preview: Heft
avg rating	preview: Heft Goodreads rating: 4.00 (4575 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11381910-heft?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327958826l/11381910.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11381910-heft?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Heft by Liz Moore[/url]

Heft

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