Instructions for a Secondhand Heart

September 1, 2017

Gr 8 Up-When the Venn diagram circles of improbable YA romance and YA tragedy lit overlap, you get this book. Neve's twin brother Leo dies while the competitive teenaged siblings are climbing rocks at the seaside; Jonny receives Leo's donated heart. Breaking all transplant privacy rules, 15-year-old Jonny tracks down Leo's family and falls for Neve-without ever telling her where his interest originated. This British import contains moments of brilliance: Neve's first person point of view is heartbreakingly true to life as she describes her family's stolid grief and her own mounting depression after Leo's death. But Jonny's counterpoint narration, while often very funny, is never as believable. His detailed, mature descriptions of life on a pediatric intensive care ward are at odds with his oblivious non-decision to stop taking his transplant medications. More jarring still are his choices to continue deceiving Neve about his past. The additional death of a secondary character from Jonny's ward seems unnecessary except to up the Kleenex count for the story. VERDICT Buy more copies of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars instead.-Beth Wright Redford, Richmond Elementary School Library, VT

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 2, 2017
Jonny Webb, almost 16, has a life-threatening heart condition that has kept him in the hospital for years. Plugged into a machine that keeps blood pumping through his body, Jonny holds onto the hope that a donor heart will become available, but that means someone his age has to die. After 15-year-old Neve Brody’s twin brother, Leo, has a fatal fall, his organs are donated, and his heart is a perfect match for Jonny. For the first time, Jonny feels as though he may have a future, but he can’t help wondering whose life was cut short. His investigation leads him to Neve, who is trying to figure out how her family can move on without Leo. British author Murray explores teen illness and death realistically, shifting between Jonny and Neve’s viewpoints. Given the setup, tears are expected, but Neve’s hard edges and Jonny’s enthusiasm for his new life keep the story from turning maudlin. Readers should find it easy to cheer on these two misfits who are figuring how they fit in and fit together. Ages 15–up.

October 1, 2017
One teen gets a heart transplant; another teen loses her brother and doesn't know who received his organs.Last summer, 15-year-old Jonny's heart stopped for three and a half minutes; now he lives in the hospital waiting for a donor heart. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Neve races up hazardous beach rocks against her golden-haired, golden-boy twin, Leo. But Leo falls, and Neve's world upends. The "catastrophic damage to Leo's brain stem" functionally means death, so Leo's family donates his organs. Neve and Jonny alternate first-person narration. Murray offers emotional realism in Neve's gritty and complicated pain (even after Leo's death, Neve feels "a poor second-best"); on Jonny's side, his repeated lies to Neve are emotionally realistic while simultaneously smacking of authorial contrivance to maintain tension. Jonny's conclusive identification of his donor as Leo using amateur internet research and his smooth sailing post-transplant (he has zero problems until he stops taking his immunosuppressive meds) require readers' faith. A closing message that life is worthless without risk clashes--almost heartlessly--with the cause of Leo's death, as risk avoidance isn't any character's issue here. Neve lives in north London, Jonny a few train stops away; they're both white.Despite skipped beats, this satisfies as fablelike, destined romance: the metaphorical stuff of hearts. (Fiction. 14-18)

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October 1, 2017
Grades 8-11 It only takes a moment: one second Neve's twin brother, Leo, is scrambling up a rock face, and the next, he's falling. In the hospital, Neve and her parents learn Leo will never recover, so they make the terrible decision to let him go. In another hospital, 15-year-old Jonny undergoes a heart transplant. As he recovers, Jonny grows curious about his donor, and after a bit of research, he reaches out to Neve as the sister of a boy who recently died. They become cautious friends and then something more. Jonny misses his early chance to tell Neve about the heart transplant, waiting until the revelation will almost surely crush their romance. Although it's evident from the beginning that Neve and Jonny will end up together, their tentative journey nonetheless feels fresh. Jonny's hospital experiences include a friendship with a girl battling cancer, and the book includes his drawings of her alter-identity as Chemo-Girl. This will appeal to readers drawn to romances featuring ill teenagers, such as (naturally) John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (2012).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)