Reviewer: Sandy
I received a review copy
Summary:
Stella Cross’s heart is poisoned. After years on the transplant waiting list, she’s running out of hope that she’ll ever see her eighteenth birthday. Then, miraculously, Stella receives the transplant she needs to survive. Determined to embrace everything she came so close to losing, Stella throws herself into her new life. But her recovery is marred with strange side effects: Nightmares. Hallucinations. A recurring pain that flares every day at the exact same moment. Then Stella meets Levi Zin, the new boy on everyone’s radar at her Seattle prep school. Stella has never felt more drawn to anyone in her life, and soon she and Levi can barely stand to be apart. Stella is convinced that Levi is her soul mate. Why else would she literally ache for him when they are apart? After all, the heart never lies…does it?
Review:
It happens at 5:08 every day. The visions, the muddled confusion, the senseless images plummets Stella from her semi-ordinary world into a world of chaos. She’s been having these painful out of body experiences since receiving her new heart and the seventeen-year old student is keeping the episodes to herself. She tries to be strong when inside the pain is tearing away at her. Henry notices a change in Stella but after all she just had major surgery so he tries to keep his feelings for Stella in check for a time when she is more herself. They have had a strong friendship for years and Henry would like something more but he knows the time is not right. You can feel Henry’s commitment and feelings towards Stella as you read the novel, the way he interacts with her, watches out for her and the way he talks to her even if he is not playing a major role in her life, he is there for her. When Levi, a new student arrives at school, Stella is memorized by him. His attentiveness towards her, Stella favors but Henry feels it is more than just attractiveness that binds him to her. Stella feels it is jealousy between the two males and her attractiveness to Levi intensifies. Together, Stella and Levi melt into each other, like strands of a string entwined together. Stella tries to lead a normal life, but her life has changed with her transplant, her active world now is at a rabbits pace. The visions that are now routine in Stella’s life are becoming clearer, the images more confusing and I am myself have started to put some of this mystery together. A party, attended by many was the icing on the cake and set everything in motion. The ending of this novel was fantastic and couldn’t have been any better.
4 stars
