Beating Heart

Someone else wrote a review that pretty much summed up this sweet story. I didn’t know how far in depth this story would go, but it gives just enough to wrap it up nicely and to get the point across well.

When his mother forces him to move with her to a new house, Evan Calhoun doesn't expect much. Sure, he'll have to move all his stuff, but he'll still go to the same school and have the same friends. Little does he know that there's a spirit occupying his new room, a spirit who will mistake him for her dead lover and change his life forever. BEATING HEART was really interesting, and my favorite part was the way the story is told. The point of view alternates between Evan and the ghost, and the ghost speaks in beautiful verse fragments that definitely make the book worth reading. Reviewed by: Andie Z.

A short tale about the interactions of a boy and a ghost who lives in his house. The ghost speaks in poetry.

Cora is dead, longing after her love for a hundred years. Evan is alive and struggling with his girlfriend Carrie who is becoming needy and clingy. Together, but separately, they learn the difference between love and sex. The poetry is beautiful. The whole story just touched me. I would recommend it to anyone.

A. M. Jenkins is well known for her accurate and sympathetic portrayals of teenaged boys. Here she mixes things up by alternating with the broken yet poetic voice of the ghost of a young girl from a hundred years before. The life of the boy and the memories of the ghost intersect in a literally shattering way. While this seems like Cora, the ghost's story, there is so much revealed through the seemingly distant third-person telling of the boy's story. You will want to read it over again immediately to savor the clues and details the author so skillfully weaves into her unusual narrative.