Book Review: My Heart Goes Bang by Keris Stainton

I was so happy when I opened my mail earlier this week and found this lovely book inside. Book mail is the best kind of mail, especially when it's a book that I've been wanting to read since I first read the synopsis. I immediately put down my current read (Sorry, Girl Online on Tour!) and started reading this.

So, let's get on with the review...
I have only read one other book by Keris Stainton and that was One Italian Summer, which was also sent to me through Readers First last year so thank you for that. I loved One Italian Summer, which I hope to find the time to reread it over the summer, so I had high hopes for My Heart Goes Bang.

It's described as being about "lectures, essays, hangovers, and flatmates" and "families, finding yourself, and falling in love with people you never expected to fall in love with."

Here's the synopsis for you:

Ella, Lou, Issey, Liane and Paige are determined to make the most of this second year at uni. They want to have fun, but they want to focus on work. There's no time for relationships. Except with each other. And even that's not guaranteed. Ella and Lou have always been close, but there's tension between Issey and Liane, and none of them even knows Paige all that well.

But when Ella finds a magazine article with a list of men they should date before they're 21 (someone who's been on telly? Check; someone who's got tattoos? Check;) they vow to complete the list before finishing university and set about it with a lot more enthusiasm than they do their studies ... but will any of them end up with a full house? And when a secret from their first year comes out, it looks as if some of them might not be completing university, never mind the list...

Let's start with the book cover. I love the colour. It just screams summertime to me.

It was this beautiful orange that caught my eye when I first came across it online.

I also love the font used for the title. I'm also not usually a fan of covers that use photographs but I think it works with this one. I know it's not all about the cover but it's also nice to appreciate it when a book has a cover as lovely as this one.

The storyline was a really interesting one for me. I liked the idea of reading a story about a group of characters at university. I have a university degree but I studied from home with the Open University, so I didn't get the full experience the way these girls did.

I think this is a fun story, great for university students to read.

Because this book is set at university, it does come with a small-print message on the back cover saying 'for older readers'. I definitely agree with this and I think anyone of college/university age is the best audience for this. They are the ones who are going to relate to the experiences and the plot the most. 

There are five female characters that this book focuses on: Ella, Issey, Liane, Lou, Paige. It was a lot of people to keep track of and I did find myself becoming a bit confused as to who was who at times. I had to flick back through the book to remind myself of who was having which problem. The only one I really remembered was Ella had a brother.

I think I remembered more about Ella and connected with her the most because she was the character who was most like me.

My favourite characters were Ella, because of the above, Nick and Ella's brother, Dylan. My favourite scene (mild spoiler) in the whole book was when Dylan turned up, just because of how the other girls reacted to him.

I loved the flow of this story and the tempo at which everything occurred. I really liked how the chapters were split up further, into months, to make the time frame clearer. 

Keris Stainton has such an addictive writing style.


I've only read two books by her but both times I have devoured the whole thing very quickly. The writing just has a great feeling about it, with a good pace that makes you just keep reading and reading. It's very hard to put down.

I've rated this book:

This was a pretty fun read, with so much going on, and a lot of themes were covered.

If you are starting university this autumn, or if you're already there, then I think you'll enjoy this book.

Or if you are looking for a book that focuses on friendship, relationships, romance, LGBTQ+, family, financial problems, education... Like I said, there are a lot of themes that are appealing to a lot of people so I definitely recommend this book.

You can order My Heart Goes Bang online here.

If you've read this book, let me know what you think.

Also, are there any other books by Keris Stainton that you'd recommend?