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Title: My Heartbeat
Author: Garret Freymann-Weyr
Narrator: Christy Carlson Romano
Format: Unabridged
Length: 3 hrs and 18 mins
Language: English
Release date: 05-07-12
Publisher: Listening Library
Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: Teens, Romance & Friendship
Publisher's Summary:
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. She is totally, madly in love with James, his face full of long eyelashes and hidden smiles. When you grow out of it, James teases her, you will break my heart.
Ellen knows shell never outgrow it. Shell always love James, just the way shell always love Link. Then someone at school asks if Link and James might be in love with each other. It's a simple question.
Link refuses to discuss it. James refuses to stay friends with a boy so full of secrets. Ellens parents want Link to keep his secrets to himself, but Ellen wants to know who her brother really is. When is curiosity a betrayal? And if James says he loves her, isnt that just another way of saying he still loves Link?
My Heartbeat is a fast, furious story in which a quirky triangle learns to change its shape and Ellen, at least, learns the limits of what you can ever know about the people you love.
Members Reviews:
"A mind with its own heartbeat!"
"A mind with its own heartbeat!" This is one of the best aspects of geekiness according to the father of My Heartbeat's narrator--Ellen, an honest, perceptive, urban teen.
I have found few books that show the struggles of sexuality and young love in a realistic, complex way. This one does. ("And now James and I navigate around each other's bodies, trying to establish boundaries even as we erase them.") It also blurs the lines of what exactly it means to be straight or gay and examines how we figure out who we are and who we love.
Another refreshing aspect of this story is that, despite confusion and heartache and love, the melodrama is kept in check. It's not overly tragic, nor is it all perfectly sweet in the end--it's more complicated than that, just like life. Ellen is a likeable narrator who never becomes annoying or whining, and both James and Link are dynamic and believeable.
I should mention that, depending on perspective, some people may find the frankness about sexuality shocking in such a young person (Ellen is a 9th grader) while others will think it is realistic. I don't mean to imply any raunchiness--the narration is never obscene or explicit in any way--but some of the teen characters are sexually active.
Overall, a sweet, honest YA novel that many teens and adults--straight, gay, or anything in between--will enjoy.
Genius
As usual, Garrett Freymann-Weyr had me captivated. I was already a fan of Pretty Girls, so getting my hands on another book by this most talented author was sheer joy.
One large flaw:
The plot of MY HEARTBEAT is a good one, with some finely written scenes that reflect the emotional gulf that exists between these parents and their teenage children. I particularly admired a tightly-contained confrontation (yet essentially non-confrontational) scene that's between Link, his parents, and Ellen, the young protagonist, after he's started dating a girl.
