TBR Commentary: Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott

Our category for TBR this month is:

Contemporary

I chose to read Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott; it’s been sitting on my NetGalley shelf for a while, so I knew I had to get to it anyway.

I really disliked this book, unfortunately. It was mostly because I hated the protagonist. I’ll be reviewing it in full later in the year, so you can see all the things I didn’t like about it in full glory then, but here are a few of my thoughts.

This book is really boring. After the initial shock of the premise – Emma’s mom was pregnant when she died, and Dan, Emma’s stepfather decided to keep her “alive” on machines to save the baby. Emma’s really upset about this. Only one boy at school understands – after we get all of that, nothing else really happens. Sure, the romance was a bright spot, as it’s supposed to be, it’s supposed to draw Emma back to life, but Emma’s conversations, or lack thereof, with her stepfather were annoying and ridiculous. Emma is furious with him for keeping her mother on hospital machines to save the baby. Like, why? Why does it make you mad that he’s trying to save your baby brother? It’s not like your mom was going to live either way.

That may sound really insensitive of me, but I really hated Emma. She was so annoying. And boring. Not at all an interesting person. And I guess that’s probably how depressed people are in real life, but in a book, she was wholly uninteresting. And I’m reading to be engaged, to be interested. This one just wasn’t for me, alas.