Review : Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott

Summary (from Goodreads)

Title : Heartbeat
Author : Elizabeth Scott
Publication Date : January 28th 2014
Publisher : Harlequin Teen
Goodreads - Amazon - Barnes & Noble

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?

Personal Thoughts

Some of my first YA contemporary novels include those by Elizabeth Scott. I grew up loving her books because they taught me so much. When I found out that she was coming out with a new title, I was beyond excited to read it. Unfortunately, Heartbeat was a hard book for me and as much as I wanted to love it, I just couldn't. Judging from the reviews on GR, this is definitely going to be a book that people are either going to love or hate.

Emma was such a hard character. I'm not even sure how to describe her because she was so complicated. Part of me hated her attitude towards everything and the other part of me pitied her. The problem with my relationship with Emma was that I hated her more than I pitied her. Grief does things to people. I completely understand that, but I felt like Emma went overboard with her rudeness and utter bitchiness towards her step-father. Her hatred for him was so toxic that it made it hard to actually read the book. Many times, I wanted to give up because there's nothing more I dislike than an unlikable heroine in a YA contemporary. The bitterness that Emma felt throughout the book made me uncomfortable and it ruined my mood many times. I got that she was sad. I got that she was devastated, but I don't think her behavior towards Dan, her step-father was acceptable. She refused to see things through his eyes and constantly accused him of not loving her mother. The thing is with Emma's hatred was that I didn't feel like Dan deserved it at all because he was nothing but sweet and nice to her. He was the kind of person who would always support Emma and considered her as his own flesh and blood and judging him for his decision to keep his future child alive was extremely mean of Emma, in my opinion.

My dislike for Emma's character affected my reading a lot. Had Emma been a little more sympathetic towards Dan, I reckon I could have liked Heartbeat a bit more. While the main character wasn't likeable at all, I thought Elizabeth Scott was extremely brave in attempting to tackle such a controversial issue. It's a tough and heart-breaking one, but I thought she dealt with it all very smoothly. There was a bit of a romance with Emma connecting with the school's bad boy, Caleb. I liked Caleb's character a lot, but I also felt like the romance was not entirely necessary in this story because there were other far more important issues to be handled. Elizabeth Scott's writing is still as lovely as ever, but the main character's attitude, in a way, prevented me from embracing the full beauty of it.

I really wanted to love Heartbeat, but in the end, I just couldn't get over my distaste for Emma's attitude. While I personally didn't enjoy Heartbeat, I think there are going to be readers who understand the main character and appreciate the book better than I did. 

Rating

Cover : 3/5
Plot : 2/5
Characters : 2/5
Writing : 3/5


Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Teen for the e-ARC of Heartbeat.
 

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