E-ARC Review: Heartbeat by Elizabett Scott

Posted by Nina L. on 12:00 PM in 4-star, contemporary, E-ARC, elizabeth scott, life and death, review, romance, YA,

Author: Elizabeth Scott

Release date: January 28th 2014

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Series: N/A

Age Group: Young Adult

Genre: Contemporary Romance 

Purchase: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository 

Add to your library: Goodreads

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? (via Goodreads)

I received an e-copy of this from Harlequin Teen through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This however did not influence my opinion of the book or of the author in any way.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Do you hear that? Well, I can because that's my heartbeat and I'm all too aware of it. You shouldn't be aware of your heartbeat everytime right? But I am since I started taking up some meds for something a few weeks ago. Somehow, I'm so bothered that I'm hyper aware of it every single time. But then I read Heartbeat then I realized that maybe it's a good thing that I actually do because at least I know I'm still living and all. See? Whatever I'm reading is often connected to my current state or feeling. Anyway...

From the very first page, anger was oozing already. It was so evident that even I felt anger. Towards Emma. I know, you can say I'm cruel because Emma is the main character and she was hurting but I was hating her. I won't if she wasn't that much of a bitch. She was this teenager who was on the first two stages of grief. I get that. How cannot she be angry? Dan chose to have her Mom's body be connected to those scary tubes just to make sure that their baby gets to live. Without asking for her opinion. Since then, she started to think and believed that she was all alone in the grief even if Dan and Olivia were there for her. In short, she was the one who shut them out. She may have not shut down Olivia physically but emotionally, yes. She believed that only she knew her Mom and all. She became a little selfish for all the wrong reasons because she cannot accept the fact that her Mom's gone and she just somehow took her for granted. Okay, maybe I wasn't really hating her. I was just disappointed on how she acted with Dan. It was a little cruel really. Even how she saw her baby brother. Maybe Dan had his flaws but itsn't it a little weird that she didn't even try to talk to him? She literally closed her world for him after her Mom died when she and Dan were so close and all before the death. It was just weird that whenever she thought of the times when her Mom was alive, the three of them were a happy family as in happy so I don't get why she didn't even acknowledge their problems beforehand. I just think that she was just really being a bitch somehow. Oh yes, she was in the first two stages of grief. That explains. As the story went on, I got to feel for her because hello. It's unthinkable to undergo that kind of situation. That you have to see your dead Mom everyday at the hospital while your baby brother was in her tummy, still living. I was able to understand why she was having that kind of anger. Still, I felt that her anger was directed towards the wrong way for the wrong reasons. I mean, she believed her Mom didn't want the baby. Really? Why didn't she just ask her Mom and Dan about it when they learned her Mom was pregnant? To think that it took her Mom two years to get pregnant didn't make her realize that her Mom really wanted it. But yeah, she was a little busy in her school life because she thought it was all that matters. You see, we believe that whatever it is we're doing is actually the most important thing in life. When in fact, there are far more important things that we should be spending our time with.

Then Caleb came. I hate to say this. I'm kinda tired of seeing these vulnerable girls realize things when a guy enters the picture. It makes them a little dependent of other people. I'm not saying you don't need other people when you're getting through something like this. But it's always the trend with these YA main characters. Somehow, it makes me feel tired and sad because I want them to be strong enough for theirselves and realize things at their own. What if Caleb didn't came? She'll never realize that her heartbeat was still there? But hey, I'm not complaining about Caleb. The guy knew life without reservations. Well, I'm just thankful he was Emma's knight in shining armor. He really was a big help in making Emma realize a lot of things. At times, I felt more sorry for Caleb for what he was going through. At least, Emma had Dan. But poor Caleb only had Emma.

I cannot end this without talking about Dan. That guy was such a lost soul. I just wanted to hug him. Emma might have lost her Mom but Dan lost his best friend, his wife, his other half. Maybe that was why I hated Emma a little because she just thought of her pain. She never did consider how Dan was feeling after all.

I thought I would end up not liking this novel because of how I felt with Emma at the start. This is the kind of novel that you have to be open, mind and soul in order to understand the feelings and actions of the main character. I'm not saying that those who didn't like this weren't open. It just really depends. That's why I'm saying, for those who are planning to read this to just be open and hear out Emma first. 

The writing of Heartbeat was beautiful. You can practically feel the characters' feelings. It was like an open door to their souls. And the things that this will teach you are such gems of the world. 

Heartbeat is a soulful, painful and a thoughtful novel that will give you a worthwhile journey in overcoming death. It has a powerful writing that can make you feel a lot of things especially being thankful for your heartbeat right now.

About the Author

Elizabeth Scott is an award-winning author of many young adult novels including Bloom, Perfect You, Stealing Heaven, Living Dead Girl, Something, Maybe, Love You Hate You Miss You, The Unwritten Rule, Grace, Between Here and Forever, As I Wake and Miracle.

Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter