Elizabeth Scott

Struggling with grief over a mother who is on life support as well as her slipping grades and her anger with her stepfather, Emma forges an uncharacteristic connection with a local bad boy, Caleb, who makes her heart feel alive again. By the author of Miracle.

Heartbeat

Melissa Palmer

Book #9 Read in 2014
Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott (YA) Amazon Vine review book

Emma's mother dies unexpectedly. Emma's stepfather, Dan, decides to keep Emma's mother alive by machines because she is pregnant; his hopes is to keep her alive long enough for the baby to be safely delivered. Emma resents that he was able to make this decision without her say and she shuts herself off emotionally from him. Every day after school (where valedictorian-in-the-making Emma has gone on an academic nosedive) she goes and sits by her dead mother's beside. Emma begins a connection with bad boy Caleb as he understands in ways that her friends cannot since his younger sister Minnie died in a biking accident. Their common understanding of loss draw them together. 

This book was a riveting read. The raw emotion of Emma's sense of loss was wonderfully written. Emma and Caleb's love story was touching. I recommend this read.

I received this book from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for a review.

http://melissasbookpicks.blogspot.com

Ella Zegarra

I've received an ARC of this in exchange of a honest review

Pronto Reseña en El Extraño Gato del Cuento

Destiny J Tamayo

This follows the story of 17 year old Emma who has to see her mum everyday even though she is dead. Her little brother is struggling to survive and Emma is suffering from an over bearing amount of grief and anger. 
I personally really enjoyed this book despite all of the character's flaws. My favorite part was that this book even though the book ends on a more positive note the characters still have more development to go through since they are still considerably "broken". The characters felt real to me and they were all so different and yet perfect in their own way. I'll admit i'm still very skeptical about the plot and how it all went down but overall I loved every aspect of this book.
Elizabeth Scott is one of my favorite authors every book I read so far by her i've loved. She has a way of writing that is beautiful and keeps me engrossed the entire time.

Lisa ✩ @lifeinlit

3.5 stars!

I’m struggling a bit with writing a review for this one. Heartbeat wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. I’m not really sure if I liked the book or hated it, but either way it left an impression on me.

Emma is struggling to cope with the loss of her mother, which occurred only a couple months prior. The closure and dealing with her mother’s death is delayed by the fact that Emma is still able to visit her mother (or more appropriately her mother’s body) every day as her mother is being kept alive by machines until the baby that’s growing inside her is able to live on his own. Emma’s stepfather made the decision to keep her brain-dead mother’s heart beating long enough for his unborn son to have a better chance of surviving. Let’s just say Emma is having a difficult time dealing with his decision. She’s mad. REALLY mad. At everyone and everything.

Anyone that knows me knows how much I love my contemporary and realistic fiction stories. I really thought I would love this one. But the anger Emma felt toward everyone and everything was something that was very difficult for me to understand. Though I can completely relate to anger and loss, I couldn’t grasp her hatred toward her stepfather, and really anyone else that looked at her the wrong way, over the decisions that were made regarding her mother. Yes, it maybe wasn’t what she would have chosen herself, but she neglected to see anyone else’s opinion on the subject, including what her mother would have wanted. I’m sure this is a major part of the story, and we’re not supposed to love Emma, but this made me a bit frustrated with her actions and thoughts throughout the story.

The idea of this story and the way Elizabeth Scott went about approaching such a sensative topic was very well done. When I first read the synopsis I knew this was a book I would read. Though I have heard of people keeping bodies alive for things like this, I never really thought twice about it. Reading this story definitely opened my eyes to this sort of thing. Honestly, I can’t imagine how Emma felt, or how Dan, her stepfather, felt while making a decision like that. Though tough and heart-wrenching may describe it accurately, I think it’s much more than that.

I’m really happy I decided to give this book a go. And I’m happy I didn’t stop reading right away when Emma started to get on my nerves. I was happy to see the way she developed as the story progressed. The romance in the story was a nice addition as well. There was a major emphasis on family and friends, which I found heartwarming. It definitely left me thinking long after I finished the book.

(Thanks to Harlequin Teen and Netgalley for the review copy!)

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Heartbeat

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