Customer Reviews

What Hearts

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are have been an incredible amount of books written in recent years for young people, but even if you exclude the junk there are very few that can be called really great. Bruce Brooks' "What Hearts" is one of these.

Brooks presents his basic themes, forgiveness (a rather unusual subject) and the meaning of love, with absolute sincerity. Asa's feelings and problems are real. It doesn't matter how different your life and problems may be from Asa's; if you are sensitive to your own feelings, I think you will be able to identify with his.

This may sound a bit odd, but it's also one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I might particularly cite, in the second chapter, Asa's forgiveness and acceptance of his friend Joel. The end of this chapter is truly wonderful; all by itself, this would make the book a great one. Also the almost heartbreaking, though very beautiful, concluding chapter, one of the most sensitive and true descriptions of love (and, once again, forgiveness) that I know.

All in all it's a masterpiece. Sure, hardly any book is absolutely flawless, and "What Hearts" is no exception. But the author's remarkable perception, exquisite writing, and love for the human heart transcend any small faults you might find with the story. It is one of those rare books that really come from the heart.

This book... is simply amazing. Asa, the main character, is a intelligent little boy faced with important and daunting changes in his life, starting the last day of first grade, and carrying on until he's in 7th. Asa's plight is described in such a way as to make you connect with him.
"What Hearts" is, while not quite 'dark', definitly poignant. It is the type of book you cannot put down and that you re-read often.

what Hearts, by Bruce Brooks, is a great book. It is detailed and aimed at any age. That is, any age who reads and enjoys reading chapter books. It is about a boy named Asa. Asa is walking home from from the last day on 1st grade at schol with straigt A's on his report card and a ruby red radish that he grew during school.
He is shocked when he comes home to find that his mother and father have divorced and tha his father has moved away. He also learns that his mother and himself will be moving to North Carolina to meet a man named Dave who Asa's mom is going out with.As soon as Asa meets Dave he decides that he hates him.
This story unfolds with experiences between Asa, Asa's mother, and Dave of shock, fear, sadness, and happiness.
I recommend this book to anyone, as I said, who enjoys and can read and enjoys reading chapter books. It is wonderfully written and covers many issues of today's society including hatred and ignorance, while happier issues also queue in like lve and friendship. This is an awesome book.

This book had a unique style of following Asa through four short stories. I enjoyed trying to piece them together. It seems he is a bit mature and introspective especially in the first chapter when he is only a first grader, but I did learn to rally care about Asa. The book also has some moments I will never forget. Watch especially for the endings of chapter two and chapter four -- Fantastic!

This was a well written novel.Bruce Brooks did a pretty good job on writing the moral of this novel.But there were couple of things in this story that I did not like. One of the things I disliked about the story was how there was barely any action. Another thing I disliked about this novel was how Asa would wine like a little baby when he didn`t get his way. But I liked about this story was how Asa would react to his stages as they progressed.

In every story somebody learns a lesson weather it`s good or bad. In this story I think Asa really knew what the lesson was all along, but then worked around it. If Asa was more mature on his reactions towards the different types of lessons he had witnessed I would have rate this novel five star.

I first read this young adult novel in 1995, when I was, in fact, a young adult. I was very much an "Asa" myself and identified strongly with him. The writing, the emotions, the heartbreaking realism--all superb. I read it again yesterday, and yes, it's still my favorite young adult novel. It might not be for everyone. It isn't a feel-good story, and it's almost never pretty. I've seen several instances where people couldn't quite believe Asa as a realistic character, but I assure you, there are many little Asa's running around in the world right now, and this book is for them.

I most recently purchased the Kindle Edition. Unfortunately, there are several typos, seemingly from whatever OCR software was used to create it. There are two instances where "and" became "arid" and at least two cases where "kind" became "land." There are also several stray apostrophes spread throughout (perhaps from flecks or imperfections in the original pages), as well as a few random characters and symbols attached to the ends of words. These issues don't make the Kindle Edition unreadable, but they are noticeable and sometimes distracting.

If you simply must have it now, definitely go for the e-book. If you can wait, get a paper copy.

This is Chan Il's book review not mine

This is a book about a boy named Asa. It is written by Bruce Brooks. This book doesn't seem to be one of the best books that Bruce Brooks wrote, though most of his books got at least 4-stars from readers.
I thought this book was about sports, which was what the librarian said, but sports wasn't the main thing in the book. There are many characters like his mother, father, and his stepfather but it mainly draws his life from his first grade to his fifth grade.
Asa's parents get divorced when he was in his first grade and his mother marries a man from her university, called Dave. Asa doesn't really like his mother going out with another man but he couldn't do anything about it. As the time goes, Asa seems to get along quite well with Dave but I still think that Asa didn't like Dave from the start.
One of the other things that this book deals with is Asa's first love. As this boy goes to school, he starts to like a pretty and brainy girl named Jean in his school. In the middle of the book, Asa says to her that he likes her but she doesn't answer. But at the Valentine Day, Jean gives Asa a candy saying `I love you I love you' on the candy wrapper.
This book manages to talk about his parents and his first love at the same time which really makes this a 5star book to me. I want to recommend this book to anyone who has the opportunity to do so.

When Asa was seven years old, he came home from first grade, ready to impress his mother and father with what he had done on the last day of school. Instead of finding them inside and ready to listen, his mother was outside with a suitcase and their house was cleaned out. She explained that she and his father were getting a divorce and he was leaving with her that day. They flew to meet up with her high school sweetheart, who immediately disliked Asa. Asa, for his part, immediately disliked his future stepfather, too.

At nine, Asa was experienced at changing schools and making friends. Most of his classmates liked him, but he joined the class partway through the year when everyone was already matched up with partners or groups for the talent show to be presented to the rest of the school and the students' parents. One boy, Joel, offers to let Asa recite a poem with him, but when Asa reads the poem he hates it and convinces Joel to do another poem with him. The problem is that Joel is not very smart and can't seem to be able to memorize the new poem.

When he is eleven, Asa discovers baseball and finally is able to have something that connects him to his stepfather, who is suspicious of Asa's love of reading and the amount of time he spends by himself.

At twelve, Asa realizes he is in love with a girl in his class and he struggles with how to let her know how he feels. At the same time, he watches his mother struggle with depression. Will Asa's family ever be normal like it was when he was a child?

I liked the snippets of important times in Asa's life instead of focusing on one year or another more limited time frame. Asa was a very interesting character, because he was so bright and able to get along with other kids so well, but he was unable to win over his stepfather. I liked, though, that Asa was always true to himself, despite the consequences.

I couldn't believe that any mother would let her new husband be so consistently mean to her child for so long. I also didn't like that Asa's real father was never mentioned. I thought he should have had at least a little impact on Asa's life, whether it was because he was in Asa's life or because he wasn't.

I love this book!!! It was a little sad though. When he graduated the first grade he was so happy but whenever he told someone about it they did not seem to care. Then he moved ten times before he was eleven. His stepfather was so mean to him!!! Especially when he hit him with the baseball when they were practicing! My favorite part was when the love of his life gave him to candy hearts that said "I love you".

What Hearts is a well-written and thoughtful book. I loved how they got the title. The only thing that bothered me was that Asa was a little too good to be realistic. I'd still recommend the book to middle schoolers though.