Finding your own way, finding who you truly are can be difficult, especially for a teenager. Izzy tries to be a dutiful daughter, a good sister, a loyal friend, but she wants so much more. Her family’s life has been affected since her Marine father died 6 years ago, and she’s tired of moving into increasingly smaller and more depressing places.
But things are finally starting to fall into place. She’s a member of the popular a capella singing group at her school, and her family has been selected to get a house through Habitat for Humanity. And when she becomes friends with the group’s newest recruit, Aubrey, it comes with a side benefit: the girl’s handsome brother, a star athlete at another high school.
After a while though, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the pieces of her life together. She doesn’t want her friends—or Aubrey’s brother—to know her family is poor and that she's on scholarship, she doesn’t want her best friend to know she’s been spending time with someone she also has a crush on, and she wants to understand why her father’s family never contacts them.
When things come to a head, Izzy must find her own way and become the person she’s meant to be. Along the way she’ll find allies in unlikely places and anger and jealousy in others. But she’ll have to act fast before everything falls apart.
I really enjoyed How to Build a Heart. I found it so engaging and well-written. It’s so nice to read a YA book that isn’t entirely full of angst or seriously depressing situations, yet there was still a lot of emotion in the story. Maria Padian is a terrific writer. She had me hooked on this story from the first page, and I read it in just a matter of a few hours.
I’ve been looking forward to this since winning the book in a giveaway on Bookstagram. Thanks so much to Algonquin Young Readers for making it available!
No comments:
Post a Comment