My Heartbeat

Ellen is a fourteen year-old who doesn't need many friends. She has all the company she needs in her older brother Link and his best friend James, with whom she is "totally madly in love". But as they enter their senior year of high school and Ellen is finally going to the same school as her two favourite people in the world, she sees how the two boys are the objects of much speculation and begins to ask questions of her own. About the nature of Link and James' relationship. About the nature of love and of whether or not you can really know somebody else and about the art of seeing.

What this novel lacks in volume it makes up for in intensity. Written in the first person, Ellen is from the very beginning struggling to understand the show more "unwritten social laws" that remain just beyond her comprehension. She doesn't understand a lot of what is going on with her brilliant but secretive brother and James. And when she finally decides to ask the question, "Are you gay?". The result is not an answer so much as a catalyst to a watershed of events and experiences that lead to a particularly moving coming of age.

I myself am struggling to put into words why this book moved me so much. Perhaps it is because on some level I identify with quiet, socially awkward Ellen. How the unwritten social laws have always seemed as mysterious as the Kabbala to me just as they are to Ellen. Maybe it is the beautiful relationship she has with her brother- their relationship is full of mutual love and respect and even admiration. But I think it might be Ellen's acute vulnerability in general but especially when it comes to her relationship with James, who loves her as much as he loves her brother. About how love is complicated and means so much more than just sex but how sex , touching, tenderness is also a big part of it.

I also love how Freymann-Weyr approaches the issue of homosexuality and bisexuality- how it doesn't really matter what kind of plumbing the person has or who they are attracted to but that the other person is willing to reciprocate the love. How love is the same for everyone, no matter what their sexuality: we all just want to love and be loved back.

For only 154 pages, this book packs in a lot of heady stuff. This is one of the best, most lovely, tender, heart-breaking love stories/coming of age (the two so often go hand in hand) I have ever read for young adults. show less

Everyone else seems to have loved this, but I pretty much hated it. The narrator sounds more like a thirty five year old introspective intellectual than a fifteen year old, no matter how smart. The boyfriend is unrealistic also -- he is too thoughtful, too mature, too insightful. And what are her parents up to? So concerned about the sexuality of their oldest child, do they not notice that their daughter is getting into an intense relationship with a much older college man, who is obviously in love with her brother and using her as a substitute? The only person at all believable was the brother, who seems messed up and confused in a typical adolescent way.

This book takes you on an insightful journey through the emotional, psychological and sexual aspects of development of three teens. Siblings Link and Ellen each has a "special" relationship with their friend James. Ellen thinks about her brother James' relationship with Link only after a friend calls her attention to them as "a couple"; and what that means to her own attraction for him. Link searches for a gender identity; James struggles through one; and Ellen tries to understand as she loves them both. The characters are vague in the positions they take but they are real as today's adolescents. However, I do not see the relevance of the one-time sex between Ellen and Link, since their characters remain ambiguous right up to the end. show more For those who think teenagers are from another planet, this book will give you a preview of their confusing world and help you understand what they go through in this phase. show less

A sweet book that occaaaasionally strayed into the "too precocious to be believable" but mostly stayed firmly in "honest and uncertain." (Plus, it's about an Ellen!) Reminded me a bit of Madeleine L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light except that the complicated truth it's confronting is sexuality rather than death; I like to think the two heroines would have gotten along. One of those books I wish had been around when I was a teenager.

A sweet book that occaaaasionally strayed into the "too precocious to be believable" but mostly stayed firmly in "honest and uncertain." (Plus, it's about an Ellen!) Reminded me a bit of Madeleine L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light except that the complicated truth it's confronting is sexuality rather than death; I like to think the two heroines would have gotten along. One of those books I wish had been around when I was a teenager.

This book is the book I wish I'd written. It effortlessly takes the reader through one of the best and more emotionally complicated coming of age stories I've ever read. Ellen's feelings for both James and Link are honest, believable, and very age appropriate, but the boys' emotions are what makes this, as subtly as they are expressed within Ellen's narrative. My Heartbeat is an amazing book. I'd recommend it to anyone.

This was a quick listen. Ellen spends most of her free time with her brother Link and his best friend James. She loves hanging out with the two of them and being a part of their trio. She's also madly in love with James. Then one day someone asks her if Link and James are a couple and Ellen starts to realize how little she really knows Link. Her curiosity leads her on a journey to try and find out but it's hard to find out what someone doesn't know about themselves.

I loved the friendship between the three of them but it definitely took turns toward what most of us would deem inappropriate (I don't mean inappropriate in terms of age although I suppose most people would think so, I mean inappropriate in terms of whom ended up with whom.) show more There was so much potential for hurt feelings and disaster but no one seemed to experience anything they couldn't survive. Even though I didn't like how the relationships evolved, listening to them evolve was definitely interesting. There were a lot of unexpected turns and everything was very much left unresolved which as a teen would have driven me nuts but now I think totally works. show less