Rating: 
Summary: hmmmm.
Review: "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.
Rating: 
Summary: "A mind with its own heartbeat!"
Review: "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.
Rating:
Summary: All of our heartbeats
Review: I don't bother to write reviews on Amazon unless I feel really strongly about something. This book is something I feel really strongly about. I'm 24, and a man, and I came across this book really only because I work in children's publishing, but I think it's a book that stands to benefit readers of all ages and should be given the chance. Our intrepid narrator, Ellen, is very much what she is -- a female high school student -- but her experience, and the emotional and moral clarity with which her narration is imbued, will speak to readers of all ages and from all walks of life in a way that is quite breathtaking. It's a long time since I read a YA novel that affected me like this one did.
Rating:
Summary: AWSOME
Review: I loved almost every second of this book!I read it in one night! This book is one you will never forget! I hope you enjoy it!
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Book!!
Review: My Heartbeat os a really, really good book. It deals with a sensitive issue, but still ends up being good. After Ellen asks her brother's best friend James and her brother Link the question (Are you gay or. . .) she dives into reading about gay people, and I learned several things that I did not know such as that michaelangalo, who designed the Vatican, was gay (I'm not really sure if this is true or not, but since it was in the book i'm guessing it was) and that Oscar Wilde who had several children was also gay. I really liked the ending, because Ellen discovered a lot about herself, plus she got together with James which didn't exactly resolve the issue of him being gay or straight (he had slept with guys before), but I enjoyed it cause I always love romantic parts. Also, there were subtle hints towards the end that Link was gay but that was never resolved, since he had a girlfriend during the book. So you never really know what everyone wants to know, which is why I only gave it 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book!!
Review: My Heartbeat os a really, really good book. It deals with a sensitive issue, but still ends up being good. After Ellen asks her brother's best friend James and her brother Link the question (Are you gay or. . .) she dives into reading about gay people, and I learned several things that I did not know such as that michaelangalo, who designed the Vatican, was gay (I'm not really sure if this is true or not, but since it was in the book i'm guessing it was) and that Oscar Wilde who had several children was also gay. I really liked the ending, because Ellen discovered a lot about herself, plus she got together with James which didn't exactly resolve the issue of him being gay or straight (he had slept with guys before), but I enjoyed it cause I always love romantic parts. Also, there were subtle hints towards the end that Link was gay but that was never resolved, since he had a girlfriend during the book. So you never really know what everyone wants to know, which is why I only gave it 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: "My Heartbeat"
Review: My Heatbeat tossed around a lot of issues. I will have to read it again but towards the end I really wasn't sure what was going on because Link implied a lot about his sexuality but I never did figure out whether he was gay or not. The dialouge was ok but the McConell's and James alike spoke differently than everyday people did and thus, made some parts a bit unbelievable. I liked the feel of the book and I enjoyed reading it.
Rating:
Summary: hmmmm.
Review: Okay, so I mostly liked the way the main character Ellen was written in this book. It was nice to follow her relationships with her brother Link, her dad, and her brother's best friend and her eventual boyfriend James. Ellen spends the book trying to figure out what love means, what relationships both romantic and not should be like, and what's important to her. It was good to see a story where the main character was someone you could connect with, since Ellen is a person with everyday problems and is trying to figure out what life is all about. (...) I very much enjoyed Freymann-Weyr's book THE KINGS ARE ALREADY HERE, which is about a girl and a boy who have dedicated their lives to ballet and chess, respectively, but have found, in the process of growing up, that maybe these things are not what they want to dedicate themselves to so completely. It doesn't quite deal with the same subject matter as MY HEARTBEAT, but is beautifully written.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful and believable slice of life
Review: This book was about fourteen-year-old Ellen who has a crush on her older brother's best friend. When one of her classmates asks whether her brother and his best friend are "a couple," Ellen begins exploring the idea of what it means to be gay. The reviews about this novel say something about it being remarkable for refusing to 'pigeon-hole' any of its characters and that it's 'messy, just like real life,' and both those reviews are dead-on. All the characters in this novel were so unique and yet so universal, so real and so mysterious. I loved them all desperately. The author did a really good job of giving enough hints so that the reader could totally read between the lines, but she never spelled things out or let her narrator 'figure out' more than would be typical of a 14-year-old girl in her situation. The dialog in this book is amazing and actually made my heart hurt in several places because it was so real. I didn't agree with a lot of the characters' actions, but I understood them. I also didn't like that the novel didn't take the direction I expected and that it had one of those mostly unresolved endings--but it was so lifelike that that somehow fit for it. It was like a novel that was just a slice of a few months of these characters' lives that were incredibly defining for them--and it didn't need to have a plot except that you know the characters will never be the same after the events of the book are done. I also think it's a great book for adolescents because of the way it deals with the issue of gayness--but not so great for adolescents because it involves some sexual choices that I disagree with--but great for them because it's very open and not at all preachy about these choices.
Rating:
Summary: READ IT
Review: This is a wonderful book, and I recommend it to those who are 13 and up. You can really connect with Ellen,the writing style is simple and easy to read, but the issues discussed are deep. Ellen's search for answers to her brother's behavior, lead her to a deeper understanding of herself. The question of homosexuality and how many people treat is as wrong even though it's no longer a crime, or even a sin, is explored with deep understanding and care, and Ellen comes to see how many unwritten social laws are still followed. The ideas are expressed gently, you don't get bashed over the head with the right or wrong answers. You are given opinions and left to figure them out youself. This is book for people who enjoy thinking about what they read, a second reading helps see finer points, as does every reading after. Ellen's relationships with her father, mother, brother, and boyfriend are astonishing in there depth and connection to the real world. Her attitude towards sex is real, though I still think she should have been a little older. No matter what, this book is real, and nothing you read seems impossible. That's what makes it special, its reality, and its clarity, the feeling that this is true, even though its fiction.
|
