Book Review: This Heart of Mine by C. C. Hunter | How One Love Solves A Murder Mystery

A new heart saved her life—but will it help her find out what really happened to its donor?

Seventeen-year-old Leah MacKenzie is heartless. An artificial heart in a backpack is keeping her alive. However, this route only offers her a few years. And with her rare blood type, a transplant isn’t likely. Living like you are dying isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But when a heart becomes available, she’s given a second chance at life. Except Leah discovers who the donor was — a boy from her school — and they’re saying he killed himself. Plagued with dreams since the transplant, she realizes she may hold the clues to what really happened.

Matt refuses to believe his twin killed himself. When Leah seeks him out, he learns they are both having similar dreams and he’s certain it means something. While unraveling the secrets of his brother’s final moments, Leah and Matt find each other, and a love they are terrified to lose. But life and even new hearts don’t come with guarantees. Who knew living, took more courage than dying? 

Discussion:

4/5 stars

To begin, having read a contemporary book in the beginning of 2018 was pretty shocking as I am a big fantasy or anything-other-than-contemporary reader. That one statement could probably sum up my reading life. That is how predictable I can be. My daily routine consists of me sleeping, reading, watching television, studying, and blogging.

Yep, pretty predictable.

Anyway, my emotion-filled heart, which usually resembles a cold stone, is in between the pages of a book so when I started flipping through Hunter's This Heart of Mine, I felt my already crumbling social life being reduced to tiny pebbles of dry cake. 

My life will continue after a long period of time once I become the world's biggest book-eating dragon. However, I still have to be the puny teenager who cannot lift the ten pound weight in PE. *sigh*

Anyway, I kept my addiction for this book fueled by reading through the night, in between classes, and while eating. I can be described as every teenager with a cell phone except I am addicted to books. I even started my "My Strange Addiction" speech for when everyone turns against books, which will be the day I die. Moreover, Hunter entranced me with a special spell I am pretty sure that she bought at Diagonal Alley. What really entranced me was that in the light contemporary romance, there was a dark mystery revolving around a death and the ability of a person to survive because of that said death.

First, we have to bring our main character, Leah into the spotlight. Leah is dying faster than the average human due to her having to rely on an artificial heart. Before she dies, which she knows will be sooner rather than later, she wants to complete her bucket list, which includes reading 100 before she dies. This probably would sadden the average human with a heart 3x bigger than mine; however, my brain decided to take a trip away from Empathy Town and found a way to I-Want-to-See-Her-Read-And-Succeed Town. Having Leah always living life cautiously due to knowing that she may not survive her new heart made me really sad because I wanted her to live into her senior years. I got very upset that she would not complete her dangerous journey through the Island of Mysterious Reads. Anyway, there is more to Leah rather than just an avid reader and fellow bookworm. She is compassionate and down-to-earth. Plus, she knows how to solve a mystery with her supernatural powers once she receives Eric's heart in place of her artificial one.

Throughout the book, I kept on wandering one question among many others; however, the question of whether or not Leah would die always seemed to be in the back of my mind. As this is a young adult contemporary, I knew the ending would include Leah and Matt living through their troubles and living happily ever after. It was just that I was always wondering whether Leah would be one of the cases where a patient's donated organ would be immediately rejected and leave Leah in a casket. It would always break my heart when Leah would have some trouble getting up in the morning or functioning as a so called "normal" human. I feel as if this book actually tried to convince me that I was a human, and it succeeded. 

Another big aspect that is a bit obvious that I would discuss upon is the romance. Did I find it swoon-worthy? Was my hand clearly placed on my forehead with my elbow at a ninety degree angle? Were my eyes closing with amount of amazingness I was reading? Was I creating a new ship to sail among the fictional sea of relationships? Um, so, no, I was not doing the classic swoon from every movie, but I was creating the best pirate ship, which is  equipped with a bunch of food, swords, and books, in my mind.

Anyway, I was liking Leah and Matt as a couple, but sometimes, I cringed at the romance since they were too lovey or unrealistic sometimes. Unfortunately, this is probably just me as I am very particular when it comes to relationships in books. Not like any love triangles from my past have scarred me forever. *cough cough* The Hunger Games *cough cough*

This couple is not my favorite ship. :(

Lastly, Before writing this review, I kept trying to pinpoint anything I really disliked about this book. I could say the romance was very cheesy. Maybe, a little too cheesy to actually be called any of the dozens of cheeses on grocery store shelves. Other than this book being a tad predictable, probably due to my love of reading mysteries and solving problems, I found Matt to be rude and oblivious any other person's feelings towards Eric's death. He just assumes everyone wants to help him. This is when Eric's girlfriend Cassie gets sucked into all this trouble as Matt stalks her and tries to get her to talk. I understand that all the work he was doing was to clear his brother's name, but I got so sad for Cassie as Matt would not allow her any time to grieve.

In conclusion, you should read this. 

*Received a free copy of C.C. Hunter's This Heart of Mine in exchange for a honest review.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Love,
newbookcats

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