Review: Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott

Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott

a standalone
published on January 28th 2014 by Harlequin Teen
contemporary | romance

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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?

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I’m honestly unsure of how to rate this one. It really made me cry and root for most of the characters, but at 304 pages I felt that the novel went by too quickly and not a lot of development happened.

We are first introduced to Emma, our very, very angry heroine. She wouldn’t talk to her stepfather properly since she believed that her mother died only because she wanted to make him happy. I bet a lot of people will be irritated with her character, considering the fact that she was highly inconsiderate and kind of a bitch, honestly. But I do believe that she had a reason for being the way she was. She was just broken, and I understood where all her frustration came from.

And then Emma starts to get to know Caleb, who has gone through so much and is still constantly being hurt by everyone around him. His character had so much depth and I really did like him, but I don’t think he’s a very memorable hero. Again, this might only be since the novel was pretty quick. But he was there for Emma, he understood her and didn’t try to tell her everything’s alright because honestly nothing was. I wouldn’t normally associate myself with guys who stole cars and went through rehab, but Caleb was such a sweet, misunderstood boy.

My favorite part of the novel was basically Emma’s coming to terms with her family, how she started realizing that she had a family who loves her and that she should love. She also had a very supportive friend who tried her best to understand what Emma’s going through and how she could make things easier for Emma.

I loved everything that had to do with Emma’s grieving and her family. Elizabeth Scott did a great job with making me mourn with Emma and feel what Emma felt. With such a beautiful writing style, Scott was able to make me cry rivers. The romance was not up to par with everything else in the novel, sadly. And in the end (mini spoiler, I’d say), I didn’t like how Emma let go of her studies and just went with the flow instead of working harder like I would’ve wanted. Like what the hell, girl?

All in all, this was a beautifully crafted novel, but I did think it wasn’t as wonderful as it could’ve been. It had more potential which I hope Scott will improve on in her future novels.

3.5 skulls

Let’s discuss! Have you read this book? If you have, what did you think of it? If you haven’t, will you be picking it up anytime soon?