Genre: YA Contemporary (Light Romance)
Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5
Publisher: Penguin (Speak)
Spoilers?: No.
Goodreads Synopsis:
Ellen loves Link and
James. Her older brother and his best friend are the only company she
ever wants. She knows they fight, but she makes it a policy never to
take sides. She loves her brother, the math genius and track star. And
she is totally, madly in love with James, with his long eyelashes and
hidden smiles. "When you grow out of it," James teases her, "you will
break my heart." Then someone at school asks if Link and James might be
in love with each other. A simple question. But the answer is far from
simple, and its repercussions affect their entire lives. This
extraordinary, multiple award-winning novel is funny, heartbreaking, and
messy--just like its characters, just like life.
Available on Amazon (Or this edition).
Review:
This book kind of
surprised me. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not, it just wasn’t what I
was expecting.
My Heartbeat is about Ellen and her
brother Link and Link’s best friend James. Only, maybe James isn’t only his
best friend. Link and James have been friends forever, really close, and spend
practically all their time together. Which makes some people wonder if, maybe,
they aren’t only friends. When someone mentions this to her, she starts wondering, and can’t stop, and then things get messy when
she asks them about it.
I don’t want to
spoil things too much, but things didn’t get messy in the way that I expected
them to. It was interesting to me how things got messy, and while it didn’t
quite feel right, as in it gave me uneasy feelings, things kind of worked
themselves out.
I liked Ellen, and
found her relationship with James to be interesting. I also liked Link. At
first, I was unsure of him, and felt a little sorry for him, and while I still kind
of do, he surprised me a little. He didn’t do quite what I expected, even if he
did do something that wasn’t too big a surprise. I was hoping he would go a
step further, and I really wanted to see if he was going to accept what he was
feeling, if it really was what he was feeling. I think, overall, I just wanted
to know more about Link. I wouldn’t have minded getting in his head for a bit.
There are some gay
messages in here, but not really in the way I was expecting. I liked Ellen’s
mother’s take on it, but not her father’s, at all. I didn't much like her brother reaction about it, either. And I really enjoyed, and respected,
what Ellen did about it. She didn’t shy away from any of it, she was honest to
herself about what she thought about her father and her brother, and I really
liked that she went out and did some research on the subject when she realized
she knew very little about it.
She did comment on
how it’s not really that big a deal anymore, and she didn’t understand why her
brother and father were afraid of it. And, while I really liked those thoughts,
I didn’t really agree. I mean, this was published back in 2002, and things
still haven’t really cleared up on whether it’s a big deal or not. A lot of
people still think it is.
I rather enjoyed
this book. It wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t what I expected, and I wanted more
from it, but I enjoyed it.
No comments:
Post a Comment