Pages: 304
Publication date: August 27, 2013
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
How I got the copy: Around The World ARC Tours
Rating: 1 Star
From Goodreads:
Life. Death. And...Love?
Emma would give anything to talk to her mother one last time. Tell her about her slipping grades, her anger with her stepfather, and the boy with the bad reputation who might be the only one Emma can be herself with.
But Emma can't tell her mother anything. Because her mother is brain-dead and being kept alive by machines for the baby growing inside her.
Meeting bad-boy Caleb Harrison wouldn't have interested Old Emma. But New Emma-the one who exists in a fog of grief, who no longer cares about school, whose only social outlet is her best friend Olivia-New Emma is startled by the connection she and Caleb forge.
Feeling her own heart beat again wakes Emma from the grief that has grayed her existence. Is there hope for life after death-and maybe, for love?
Emma would give anything to talk to her mother one last time. Tell her about her slipping grades, her anger with her stepfather, and the boy with the bad reputation who might be the only one Emma can be herself with.
But Emma can't tell her mother anything. Because her mother is brain-dead and being kept alive by machines for the baby growing inside her.
Meeting bad-boy Caleb Harrison wouldn't have interested Old Emma. But New Emma-the one who exists in a fog of grief, who no longer cares about school, whose only social outlet is her best friend Olivia-New Emma is startled by the connection she and Caleb forge.
Feeling her own heart beat again wakes Emma from the grief that has grayed her existence. Is there hope for life after death-and maybe, for love?
Cover: I don't understand how this book still have no cover and it hits shelves in a month...
I've never given a book one star before so bear with me...I'll try not to rant. I was expecting a Sarah Dessen-ish type book with a hard topic at the core, but with a lesson learned and some romance in between. And while this book had those components something went amiss in the execution.
It's kind of like baking a cake. If you add in the ingredients at the wrong time and too much or too little of even just one ingredient the end product is not quite right. It might still taste okay, but maybe it looks flat or isn't the right consistency. I feel that Contemporary books have a certain recipe that make them extraudinary and the author didn't even glance at it while concocting this book.
There was so much hurt and hatred in Heartbeat that was not balanced by the romance. It left me feeling angry and depressed pretty much the whole time. I was reading it in a hospital so that might have not helped, but all in all it was not an uplifting book. And when the character finally learns to move past her hateful emotions it is so random and quick that I was left in the dust confused. How can someone go from hating a person for days/months to forgiving them in one instant. It doesn't work like that.
Emma was just so selfish it disgusted me. She'd rather kill her baby sibling than let her mom be on life support for a few weeks. Plus, her stepfather is grieving and she's being incredibly disrespectful to him. Even at seventeen I would have NEVER said or done what she did and I've been through many a death in the family at much a younger age than that. So I had such a hard time connecting with her. Maybe it's just me, but I want to read strong female characters who even when their life is falling apart they pick themselves back up.
I did however like Caleb. He was the one thing that kept me reading. I wanted to know his back story and see how he helped Emma grow. I felt his character could have been explored more. Maybe a dual POV with a few chapters from his perspective could have helped the story feel a little less depressing.
I've read lots of other reviews and everyone seemed to love this book. I feel weird for not liking it, but I refuse to lie to other readers for the sake of not getting booed. So my honest opinion: if you liked Elizabeth Scott's other books than try this one. If not or if you're like me and haven't read anything else of hers... skip it.
It's kind of like baking a cake. If you add in the ingredients at the wrong time and too much or too little of even just one ingredient the end product is not quite right. It might still taste okay, but maybe it looks flat or isn't the right consistency. I feel that Contemporary books have a certain recipe that make them extraudinary and the author didn't even glance at it while concocting this book.
There was so much hurt and hatred in Heartbeat that was not balanced by the romance. It left me feeling angry and depressed pretty much the whole time. I was reading it in a hospital so that might have not helped, but all in all it was not an uplifting book. And when the character finally learns to move past her hateful emotions it is so random and quick that I was left in the dust confused. How can someone go from hating a person for days/months to forgiving them in one instant. It doesn't work like that.
Emma was just so selfish it disgusted me. She'd rather kill her baby sibling than let her mom be on life support for a few weeks. Plus, her stepfather is grieving and she's being incredibly disrespectful to him. Even at seventeen I would have NEVER said or done what she did and I've been through many a death in the family at much a younger age than that. So I had such a hard time connecting with her. Maybe it's just me, but I want to read strong female characters who even when their life is falling apart they pick themselves back up.
I did however like Caleb. He was the one thing that kept me reading. I wanted to know his back story and see how he helped Emma grow. I felt his character could have been explored more. Maybe a dual POV with a few chapters from his perspective could have helped the story feel a little less depressing.
I've read lots of other reviews and everyone seemed to love this book. I feel weird for not liking it, but I refuse to lie to other readers for the sake of not getting booed. So my honest opinion: if you liked Elizabeth Scott's other books than try this one. If not or if you're like me and haven't read anything else of hers... skip it.
"I look at him and my heart, which I was so sure was dead, burned out, beats hard and fast. Beats like I'm alive, like there is life in me, like I didn't die when Mom did."
(Quote is from an ARC and may appear different in finished copy)
