My Heartbeat

Weyr-Freymann, Garrett. My Heartbeat. Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.


Annotation: Ellen loves James and James loves Link, but Link is too confused to know who he loves. Garrett Freymann-Weyr writes a humor filled, coming of age portrait of a young girl becoming a woman. Ellen’s innocence and naivete are put to the test as she slowly realizes that the love of her life and her brother may be a couple.


Justification for rejection: My Heartbeat is story about a 14 year old girl trying to come to terms with her feelings for her older brother’s best friend. As she stumbles through this emotional journey, she begins to realize that the love of her life is love of her brother’s life, too. Unfortunately, her brother has internal demons that keep him from expressing any real emotion and hiding the fact that he may be gay. This book is a true depiction of a coming of age young adult novel. The main character, Ellen, is the innocent beginning her journey into adulthood. Her brother link is friend, her sage, but also becomes Ellen’s antagonist as she tries to break the traditional non-communication that absorbs her family. She wants to understand her brother’s conflicting emotional despair and try to help him embrace his sexual identity, whatever that ends up to be. At the same time, she is madly in love with James, her brother’s love. As her brother runs from his internal demons, Ellen and James become closer and begin to date. As James and Ellen get closer, Link goes deeper inside himself. This was a great book, but I don’t think it is worthy of a Prinz award nomination. There are many themes that run through the narrative. For example, homophobia, loss of innocence, who am I, defiance of authority, and finding the inner voice. Ellen metamorphosis from child to adult starts when she realizes that her brother Link may be gay. She learns through books about what homosexuality is and learns through James about how it feels. She also learns that her father is not as open minded as he thinks he is. Although Ellen is the main character, I think not enough attention was paid towards Link. I think his character should have been developed more. There were many insinuations as to what Link thought, valued or believed, but he was never given a voice to confirm or deny. It left me feeling at a loss and confused. I wanted more as a reader and this was frustrating to me. Although, I do think that the book will stimulate the reader to think about the themes presented in the text.
Genre: Coming of age/edgy/realistic