Customer Reviews

My Heartbeat

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ellen has always tagged along with her brother Link and his best friend James. They've been inseparable for some time now, and Ellen can't help but be crazy about James. During her freshman year in high school, one of the other girls asks her if James and Link are a couple, and suddenly things begin to change: for Ellen, for Link, for James, for their families. Exploring the gray areas between gay and straight, "My Heartbeat" is an exceptional story aimed at a young adult audience, but certainly deserving a larger audience. Freymann-Weyr's writing is lush without being too flowery, sparse without telling too little. She tells us a lot through this tale, and "My Heartbeat" shines because of it.

When I first chose this book I thought finally, a new twist to the boring old love story! But towards the end the book was agonizing and it almost felt like the author abandoned her characters. It felt like Link was finally being true to himself when all of a sudden James sleeps with Link's 14 year old sister and ISN'T gay anymore? What about Link? How does he feel? It was never said and the ending felt so sloppy. I guess the biggest problem for me was the characters never stayed true to who they are and everything felt so strained at the end. Not a pleasant read to me but loved the concept and we should defiantly have more stories about these subjects.

I come down on the side of squeamish when a story veers into fourteen-year-old girls having sex. Many fourteen-year-old girls, of course, will think it's nifty that an author can limn exactly what's going on in their minds: the confusion, divided loyalties, the extreme hotness of a sixteen-year-old Johnny Depp look-alike with his melting brown eyes and square jaw who is gay but could be persuaded (is it hot in here or is it just me?)

The trouble with this wonderfully perceptive book is that it's possibly over the heads of its intended audience. The public library labeled it JF, but I think it's YA or even adult. Not because of the subject matter (the girl in question senses her brother and his best friend are gay) but because the dialogue and observations attain a level of sophistication difficult for the young to fully grasp. Conversations between parents and children reach new heights in hidden meanings, double entendres, and acute self-knowledge, even though the brother is described as not knowing what he is or what he wants (he's gay, but is unwilling to own it).

It could be that elite Manhattan parents leave their young teenagers to fend for themselves with pockets full of twenties and lax curfews. I found the freedom of these characters easy to swallow - if they were twenty instead of the high school freshmen and juniors they were. And these were parents who supposedly cared very much about their children.

Regardless of these reservations, My Heartbeat is a realistic, excellently written, engaging story with living characters. The inner workings of Ellen's mind are right on. The description of Link and James' relationship fits friendships one has observed in life. Especially enjoyable were the discussions about literature and foreign films, and about finding one's own voice. Come to think of it, I would have loved this book had I read it at fourteen. But I was an unusual child.

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.

Let me first say that there are two things I didn't like about this book: 1) I think the cover art is strange. It gives a too childish impression to the more sophisticated ideas in the book and 2) I am sorry that the sex scene had to be included. I suppose that is expected of young adult literature these days, but it made a book that I would otherwise have no trouble recommending generally into a book that I would caution more conservative parents about. Please, authors, if one of the characters is still only 14, she and her boyfriend don't need to have sex to resolve the story line. Be creative, think of other choices!

Now the part I did like: It is very well written. The characters are appealing and very real, especially, of course, the main characters, but even some of the side characters have unexpected complexity.

I also love the activities that Ellen and James did for fun - people watching in cafeterias and airports, concerts where she actually ends up enjoying Strauss, interminable foreign language films. These are just quirky enough to be interesting, but not bizarre. I was a bit surprised at Ellen's sudden interest in and skill at art, which just happened to be what James was interested in - especially since it was suggested by her father, but that was only a minor distraction.

Finally, I like the unabashed description of the rest of Ellen's social life - notes home about a lack of social skills and her perplexity at having to discuss trivia as a requirement to get to know people at her new school.

It is a good book and well worth the time.

I never would have discovered this hidden gem if it weren't for my booktwin reviewing it so glowingly a few years back. Not only had I not heard of Garret Freymann-Weyr before, but I'm pretty sure neither of its covers would have induced me to pick it up. Seriously, what in the world were they going for with this one? I just...I have no idea. But I know they missed. And the pink one is sort of cute, but really not indicative at all of what's inside. So. The Printz Honor award, on the other hand, always draws my eye as I've been quite impressed with the majority of Printz picks over the last few years. I would have given this one the award itself--I love it that much. So when an upcoming trip to Morocco rested on the horizon, I went out and purchased a copy of MY HEARTBEAT to take with me. Despite the fact that it's a slim 160 pages, I could tell it should be in the stack as I was packing. I ended up pulling it out one night in our bed & breakfast in Essaouira and staying up much too late devouring it in one gulp. What a lovely memory that night remains. And yet I've talked to comparatively few people who've read this beautiful book. And so today I'm going to tell you exactly why I love it with such intensity.

Ellen and her old brother Link live with their crazy busy parents in a full but cozy apartment in Manhattan. They attend the same prestigious private school with Link's best friend James, who Ellen has been in love with for a couple of years now. Link is something of a math genius, a dedicated track star, and quite a talented pianist. James is also a gifted musician (though he has to have sheet music to play), a film buff, and an artist. Together they are her favorite people in the world and she considers life good when the three of them are hanging out together. One day at lunch, after bringing home one too many letters from school criticizing her social skills (or lack thereof), Ellen attempts to be a bit more outgoing and sits with some other girls. When the conversation turns to Link and James, one of the girls says to her, "They're like a couple, aren't they?" And that single sentence turns Ellen's world on end. She realizes this issue has simply never occurred to her before. Nor has the issue of why neither of her boys spends much time with girls. Besides her. Afraid to ask the question, but wanting desperately to understand them both better, Ellen goes first to her mother. And then to Link and James. Their respective responses to her question open up a can of worms Ellen was desperately hoping to avoid, brings down an invisible wall between Link and James, and provides the stepping off point for the beginning of Ellen's education on life, love, loyalty, and how many different versions there are of all of them.

It was love at first sight with these three. I can't tell you how quickly I fell for them. Maybe it was when Ellen first revealed that telling Link she thought James was super cute was the only way her seventh-grade self could verbalize totally madly in love. Maybe it was when she kept picturing him as the heroes in the novels she was reading for English class. It could have been every day when Link and James sat on the fire escape during lunch, Link critiquing James' art, prowling the halls after in search of who knows what. Or maybe it was simply when Link and Ellen watched Casablanca together and stood up to sing the "Marseillaise" along with the actors just as their dad taught them to when they were nine and seven years old. MY HEARTBEAT is filled with a million little perfect moments, exquisite glimpses into the lives of others as they try and fail and try to know one another and learn that sometimes the ones you love the most are the ones you know the least. A favorite passage early on as Ellen goes in search of Link after he and James have had a disagreement:

--

I decide to go knock on Link's door and tell him I can't sleep.
When I was little we used to sleep in each other's rooms the night before all special occasions: Christmas, trips to Europe, first days of school, and birthdays. We stopped when I was nine or ten. I don't remember which one of us decided we were too old or if anything was said. It just stopped. Special occasions now come and go without our marking it by sleeping in the same room. Link's not exactly Mr. Hospitality tonight, saying, in response to my knock, "I told you no."
"It's Ellen," I say, knowing he hasn't told me no in a few days.
"It's open for you," he says and I go in.
"Who'd you tell no?" I ask, settling carefully into the broken armchair near his bed.
"Your mother," he says.
When he's mad at Mom or Dad, they become your mother or your father, as if I were responsible for their behavior. It's my policy never to ask why he's mad at them. Why borrow trouble?
"James went out," I say.
"Yeah, I know," Link says. "Your mother wanted to know where he went."
"Do you know?" I ask.
"Ellen, it's late."
"I don't think he likes that guy at all," I say, wanting to reassure him. And probably myself.
"Which guy?" Link asks, sitting up in bed. "What are you talking about?"
"The tennis champion," I say.
"Oh, that. He was just kidding, Ellen. You can't take James seriously."
"So where is he?" I ask.
"I don't know," Link says. "He wanted to go out and I didn't. End of story."
"How come?"
"How come what?" Link asks.
I don't say anything. He's not asking me a question so much as telling me it's none of my business. He never says that to me in a flat-out way, of course. It's more Link's style to put all the important information into what he doesn't say. Sometimes I understand him and lots of times I don't. Tonight I do.
"He should have asked you to go," Link says. "You would have gone with him."
"I might," I say. Probably. Sure. No doubt about it.
"You would," my brother says. "You would follow James to the moon."
I don't say anything, and after a while Link asks if I want to sleep in his room.
"Yes," I say. "Because it's my birthday tomorrow."
"It's two in the morning," Link says. "Tomorrow is here."
He gets out of bed, and while he's whispering (instead of singing) "Happy Birthday," he clears a space on the floor, where he makes up a sleeping area with a quilt and two of his pillows.
"You take the bed," he says, the way he used to when I was nine.
I lie awake for a long time. For hours after Link has drifted off to sleep. I listen for and I hear James returning to the house. It is true I would follow James to the moon. But if Link would let me, I would follow him anywhere he wanted.

--

I fell so in love with the relationships in this book. Every one of them. Ellen and Link. Ellen and James. Ellen and her mother. Ellen and her father. They seemed at once so far removed from me and so much the same. I loved the complexity of this most unusual and refreshing of love triangles. It is a mature story, an at times painful story, and it deals with mature and endlessly complicated issues including sexual identity, artistic philosophy, the rigidity of expectations and social mores, and the elasticity of the heart. It will not be for everyone. But it was so very much for me. What a sweet, sweet story and how much I wanted to sit in cafés with Ellen, James, and Link and just be intellectual and chummy with them. Finest kind.

Recommended for fans of Madeleine L'Engle, John Irving, and Melina Marchetta.

This is a good story, with some finely written scenes that reflect the emotional gulf that exists between these parents and their teenage children. I particularly admired a tightly-contained confrontation (yet essentially non-confrontational) scene that's between Link, his parents, and Ellen, the young protagonist, after he's started dating a girl. It's revealed that his father is giving Link money -- is it to have extra money to entertain the girlfriend with, or a bribe to Link to go on dating her, and thereby prove he's not gay, as the father secretly fears?

My biggest criticism of this book is that the 13/14-year-old narrator, Ellen, ever so gradually begins to sound like the 30-something that the author, Garrett Freymann-Weyr, really is. No 14-year-old girl, even an intellectually bright one such as Ellen, would be as deeply rumative as Ellen becomes after she and James have their first full sexual encounter, projecting years ahead to their future relationship and what that may become.

Ellen's gradual "aging" begins a little more than halfway through the story, and is a pretty large flaw in my opinion. Despite that, My Heartbeat at times still manages to accurately capture certain adolescent conclusions and confusions, and parental (adult) attitudes toward them. But curiously, I think adult readers would admire this book more than adolescent ones.

I found this book refreshingly openminded, The characters sincere and understandable if a bit unusual.A quick easy read, It manages to conclude without a fairytale ending, and still be more than satisfying. A book I could not put down, Ellen's struggles to understand the realities around her and her blossoming romance with James are both realistic and fascinating to read. A great novel.

Ellen and her brother Link attend an elite, private high school in Manhattan. He is an incoming senior researching Ivy League schools. She just received Rollerblades for her 14th birthday. Link's a math whiz and a genius, while Ellen is happy to be average. Link likes his best friend James, but Ellen likes "super cute" James too. The three of them form an unlikely friendship, in which Ellen loves them equally. She's perfectly content and comfortable to have no other friends her age or gender in addition to being deeply and unrequited-ly in love with James until a school mate questions the nature of the boys' relationship.
And despite being close to them, Ellen doesn't know herself. Going to her mother and finding she is also in the dark Ellen gathers all her naïve confidence and confronts James and Link themselves. What she finds astonishes her and changes James, Link, and their relationship permanently as well as providing a springboard for Ellen to discover love and identity of all kinds.

Sometimes the best things come in small packages, and in the case of My Heartbeat, it couldn't be truer. Though I read it in one, short sitting the characters and relationships in this book have left a much longer-lasting mark. From the first page I identified with Ellen and eased comfortably into her relationship with Link and James. I was surprised at how subtle the issue of sexual identity emerged and how honestly it was handled. This potentially controversial subject comes off completely natural and normal and is only part of the many subjects and relationship types this book explores. I was happily taken aback and proved wrong many times when I almost without knowing pigeon-holed certain characters or tried to predict the plot. What Garret Freymann-Weyr portrays is real, honest life without the stereotypes. Even Ellen's mother and father surprised me in their depth, particularly for YA parents. What hooked me though was the spare, pointed writing and Ellen. She genuinely loves both Link and James and only wants the best for them. Even if it's not in her best interest, as this quote illustrates:

"It is true I would follow James to the moon. But if Link would let me­, I would follow him anywhere he wanted."

Her naïve innocence and maturity are raw and endearing. The life lessons Ellen learns are sweet and profound. With a perfectly hopeful and understated ending and fluid style, I'm surprised My Heartbeat isn't more well-known. It undoubtedly stands out from the YA contemporary crowd and deserves more readers. For now and always I'm proud to count myself as one of them and will surely be checking out Garret Freymann-Weyr's other books.

"I was only in the seventh grade, so super cute was the best cover I could come up with for totally madly in love. Of course my brother told him. `When you grow out of it'James teases her, `you will break my heart' He said. Almost two years later I'm still totally madly in love with James." The book My Heartbeat is young adult fiction and takes place in Maine. Ellen, her brother and James (his best friend) have always been very close. Ellen loves them both very much, but comes to love James in a different way than her brother and one day wants James to feel the same way about her. Link and James tease her about it all the time, but by now it has become routine for them. Even so Ellen knows that she'll never stop loving James, or Link. One day at school someone questioned whether Link and James were a couple. This question puzzled Ellen and she really didn't know the answer. "They are a couple. Of course they are. And yet...I know about them enough to feel this is not how they would choose to describe themselves." When she gets the courage to ask, there are certainly mixed feelings on the whole situation. James feels it's ok to say that, Link on the other had said that's not what he wants. This brings up a fight between them. When Link gets a girlfriend and James seems to have finally fallen in love with Ellen, things seemed to have been set straight, but Ellen knew that James loved Link, and vise versa, the question now was... just how much.
This was a classical romantic story of a girl who was in love, but with a surprisingly simple twist to it. I would definitely recommend this book because it was witty, romantic, dramatic, and very different from most books I've read. This book, while talking about two boys and how much they love each other, stayed very well written, and appropriate. It had well balanced clarity, while never really drawing a fine line that separates gay people from straight people. This book brought into play the well-used question of what really makes a person gay or just extremely loving towards their friend. I also recommend this book to people who don't like to read long novels. This book flew by, and almost makes you want to re-read it. It's not a hard book to read. It's clever yet simple writing adds a sparkle to the story. I learned a lot from this book. It really explained a person in a state of being gay, and another who's afraid and dodges any question of it. While never judging, the author had a way of luring the reader to read on. While giving either point of view, the story had a fine perspective and made me really enjoy reading it.