A Matter of Heart by Amy Fellner Dominy
Grade: C
Release date: May 12, 2015
This ARC was provided by a fellow blogger.
Summary: Readers will happily sink into this emotionally grounded, contemporary young adult novel about the sudden end of one girl's Olympic swimming dreams and the struggles she endures before realizing there are many things that define who we are.
Sixteen-year-old Abby Lipman is on track to win the state swim championships and qualify for the Olympic trials when a fainting incident at a swim meet leads to the diagnosis of a deadly heart condition. Now Abby is forced to discover who she is without the one thing that's defined her entire life.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: I usually write my reviews a few hours after I finish a book, just to give me time to mull over my thoughts and formulate them into something more coherent. Unfortunately, when the book in question was largely a "meh" book, that isn't the best idea because I tend to forget a lot of the plot. Such was the case with A Matter of Heart. If I remember correctly, a good part of the novel was focused around Abby questioning if she actually had a heart condition or not and then making stupid choices. I know what it's like to have a dream, but sometimes your health has to come before your desires and I couldn't believe anyone would be so stupid to repeatedly ignore doctors' advice and throw caution to the wind. Abby could've died on many occasions, and she was incredibly lucky that she didn't. Also, she suddenly got incredibly jealous of her best friend and boyfriend, which was realistic but still annoying. This is one of those books that makes me wonder if I'm already too old for YA, since I thought all of the characters were being incredibly immature. Although I'm pretty sure my friends and I never did anything this incredibly life-threatening when we were 15 and 16.
Romance was pretty much PG-13. Language-wise, I remember the s-word being used.
The Verdict: I didn't struggle to finish A Matter of Heart but, when I reached the end, I was very unsatisfied.
Will I be adding this book to my library?: It's unlikely.
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