My rating: 4 out of 5 stars!
I won an Advanced Readers Copy of Instructions for a Secondhand Heart by Tamsyn Murray from NOVL in a Twitter giveaway, so I definitely want to thank them for the opportunity to read this! The Goodreads summary as follows:
Jonny knows better than anyone that life is full of cruel ironies. He's spent every day in a hospital hooked up to machines to keep his heart ticking. Then when a donor match is found for Jonny's heart, that turns out to be the cruelest irony of all. Because for Jonny's life to finally start, someone else's had to end.
That someone turns out to be Neve's twin brother, Leo. When Leo was alive, all Neve wanted was for him (and all his glorious, overshadowing perfection) to leave. Now that Leo's actually gone forever, Neve has no idea how to move forward. Then Jonny walks into her life looking for answers, her brother's heart beating in his chest, and everything starts to change.
Together, Neve and Jonny will have to face the future, no matter how frightening it is, while also learning to heal their hearts, no matter how much it hurts.
Our main characters are Neve, whose twin brother Leo, dies in a tragic accident and Jonny who receives Leo’s heart as a organ transplant. Jonny, who never had the chance to live a real life due to his heart diagnosis, takes his second chance to track down the name of his heart donor. In the process of finding out this information, Jonny finds Neve, a young girl who is trying to cope and mend her own heart without her twin brother. Jonny hides a big secret and his secret is another reason why I had to keep reading, to see how it all played out. After only reading 2 chapters I knew I was going to finish this in one sitting. You are immediately hit with an intense rush of emotion and it is hard to not feel for these characters, I had to continue reading because I needed to see them succeed. This is a story about life, loss and second chances. Your heart will break & you will shed tears (I honestly lost track of how much I cried) but it’s beautifully written and I was left needing more. However, there are some things I felt this story lacked and at times I felt the plot was too rushed. It's an easy read so naturally the chapters do flow pretty quickly but I would have definitely liked a little more build up to the plot and time spent before the characters met. If I am not mistaken this entire story takes place over 4 months or so and a lot happens in these 4 months. Did Leo's outgoing personality rub off on Neve now that he's passed? Did she enter any school activities in his honor? How did Jonny learn the limits for his heart? Was he able to try out for any sport teams? I personally would have loved to see this story take place within the course of a year so maybe these questions could have been answered. Of course this is my opinion. Regardless of the time frame this story still works and I truly enjoyed reading. I rated it 4 out of 5 stars! The back of this book states this is a fan for lovers of All the Bright Places, one of my personal favorites, and Everything, Everything, another book that I loved so I absolutely agree that if you liked one or both of these other books, please give this one a chance! The release date for Instructions for a Secondhand Heart was December 5, 2017, so you can grab your own copy now!
Please find my Goodreads review for Instructions of a Secondhand Heart, here.
