Review: Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott

Title: Heartbeat
Author: Elizabeth Scott
Genre: Contemporary, YA
Publisher: Harlequin Teen 
Publication date: January 28th 2014
Pages: 304 (hardback) 






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 Olde 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 this life after death - and maybe, for love? 

- Goodreads -

I have some very mixed feelings about this book. I kind of liked it but at the same time I wanted to shake some sense into the main character. I understand that Emma, the main character, was going through a lot but she was so selfish at times!

When we met her she was a very angry teenage girl, angry at her stepdad, at herself and at the world in general. She had everything to be happy, stellar school grades, a loving mother and stepfather and she would get a little brother or sister. But then her mother collapsed and died. Without consulting Emma her stepdad decides to keep her mom ‘alive’ through machines in order to save the baby. So it’s normal that she felt pushed out of his life but she didn’t even try to get his point of view on the whole situation. Well to be honest they both didn’t try to see how the other was feeling about the situation. I can understand that she was bitchy, to say the least, at times towards everyone and everything. But what bothered me the most was that she suddenly seemed to have this epiphany at the very end of the book that everything is ok and that’s she’s ok with it too. I missed the process of seeing her mental wounds heal.  

But then there was Caleb and he definitely made the book a lot better. Like Emma he’s been through hell and like her he doesn’t know how to cope with it. But with him we get to see the progress he makes to get his life back on track. He was a very sweet boy, he was there for Emma when no one else was. He didn’t try to say that everything would be alright because he knows firsthand that nothing will ever be alright after you have to go through something like that.

One of my favorite parts was at the ending when Emma and her stepdad finally realized that they both made some mistakes. And that they had to make the best out of it because no matter what they are still a family. Only everything at the end seemed a bit rushed and I wouldn’t have minded if the ending was a bit longer.

All in all a beautiful story that treats a difficult topic. But there was definitely some wasted potential. I am definitely going to read some other books from this author and see how they work out for me. 

El