Stevie‘s review of Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott
Young Adult Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Teen 28 Jan 14
Emma was a model student. She got top grades in all her classes, and she planned to get into one of the country’s most prestigious universities as a history major, following in the footsteps of the father who died when she was very young. Then her mother – pregnant by her second husband – is felled by a blood vessel bursting in her brain, and Emma’s life stops. Emma’s mother is on life support, against Emma’s wishes, because Emma’s stepfather believes there’s still a chance of saving their baby, if not his wife. Suddenly school and grades don’t seem important and, no matter what her stepfather and best friend say, Emma can’t face working on any of her assignments. Then a chance encounter with the school bad boy on one of her nightly hospital visits leads her to wonder whether she might finally have found someone else who understands her grief.
Caleb’s problems started long before Emma’s; he had plenty of friends in middle school, but then his younger sister died and he started to rebel. First he got involved in drugs, then he began stealing cars, most notably a school bus and then his father’s Porsche – which he drove into a lake just so he could watch it sink. Delivering magazines to hospital patients as part of his latest round of community service, Caleb is suddenly crossing paths with Emma every night and seemingly watching her at school as well. Emma starts to wonder if it’s grief that’s driving Caleb, and when they finally talk she discovers that not only does he blame himself for what happened to his sister, but his parents have turned the house into a shrine to her and shut him out. Quite literally to an extent – Caleb now lives over the garage rather than in the main house.
The two spend more and more time together, in spite of the warnings from Emma’s best friend – herself newly embarking on what seems to be a serious relationship – and it’s Caleb that Emma turns to as it becomes more and more likely that her mother’s pregnancy will continue to a point when the baby can be delivered successfully. Meanwhile, Emma’s stepfather reveals that the hospital bills are being paid by another family in a similar situation, except in their case there’s a lawsuit going on over whether the mother should be maintained on life support for the length of her pregnancy or allowed to die naturally.
Emma and her stepfather can’t agree on the issue either, but Emma is powerless to stop his plans. They carry very different memories of her mother, with Emma convinced her mother was scared of the risks that accompanied her pregnancy – she’d already had one blood clot surgically removed from her leg – while Emma’s stepfather believes that the fear she exhibited related to losing the baby. The ending of their story is bound to be heart-breaking, and there’s no getting around that fact. On the other hand, the book as a whole does an excellent job of exploring all sides of the argument around the rights and wrongs of the situation without making a definite judgement.
I’m not 100% happy with the ending to Emma’s mother’s story, but I feel that the exploration of teenage grief and of the possibility that both Emma and Caleb might one day move on from the depths of their respective despair are very well executed. I definitely want to read more from this author.
Grade: B
Summary:
Does life go on when your heart is broken?
Since her mother’s sudden death, Emma has existed in a fog of grief, unable to let go, unable to move forward—because her mother is, in a way, still there. She’s being kept alive on machines for the sake of the baby growing inside her.
Estranged from her stepfather and letting go of things that no longer seem important—grades, crushes, college plans—Emma has only her best friend to remind her to breathe. Until she meets a boy with a bad reputation who sparks something in her—Caleb Harrison, whose anger and loss might just match Emma’s own. 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?
Read an excerpt.
