My Beating Teenage Heart

By C. K. Kelly Martin

No one asks if you want to be born, and no one tells you when you die either. Ashlyn Baptiste is falling. One moment she was nothing--no memories, no self--and then suddenly, she's plummeting through a sea of stars. Is she in a coma? She doesn't remember dying, and she has no memories of the life she left behind. All she knows is that she's trapped in a consciousness without a body and that she's spending every moment watching a stranger. Breckon Cody's on the edge. He's being ripped apart by grief so intense it literally hurts to breathe. On the surface, Breckon is trying to hold it together for his family and his girlfriend, but underneath it all, he's barely holding on. In alternating voices of the main characters, My Beating Teenage Heart paints a devastatingly vivid picture of both the heartbreak and promise of teenage life.


From the Hardcover edition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9780385670432

C. K. Kelly Martin

C. K. Kelly Martin is the author of several critically acclaimed YA books: I Know It's Over, One Lonely Degree, The Lighter Side of Life and Death, My Beating Teenage Heart, Yesterday, Tomorrow, The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing and Delicate. She has also penned an adult novel titled 'Come See About Me.'Currently residing near Toronto with her husband, she's an aunt to twenty-one nieces and nephews, and a great-aunt to two great-nephews. She's a citizen of Ireland and Canada and visits Dublin as often as she can while working on novels about young people. Learn more at her website: ckkellymartin.com

Reviews for My Beating Teenage Heart

[marcelrochester · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Um…I like the concept of Ashlyn’s part, but only the concept. Her story is actually mostly lame and boring. The connection with the guy is tenuous and not particularly interesting. His story is more interesting, but partially from the short length of the piece overall I never get that invested in him. Plus there’s nothing original about his character or his plotline. The whole thing feels like it could’ve been a good short story, but stretched out to make a dubious novel.

[krystal_osmond_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What an interesting book! At first I was pretty confused to tell you the truth. My Beating Teenage Heart is about this boy, Breckon who has lost his sister and his journey through dealing with that, and Ashlyn, a girl who is watching over Breckon for reasons unknown to her.Right away I feel bad for Breckon. The loss of his younger sister takes quite the toll on him and he's unsure how to act and get through this. Unfortunately, his family doesn't seem to be overly helpful at times because they are still coming to terms with things as well. For me, I really feel for characters who have to deal with situations like the death of a family member. Thankfully, I have never had to deal with anything like that and since I have a very tight knit family, I don't know what I would do if anything ever happened. Along with Breckon's narration of My Beating Teenage Heart, we are reading through Ashlyn's point of view. She understands that she is either dead or in a coma, realizing something is wrong with her situation she tries her hardest to remember her life and memories. All while doing that, she is looking over Breckon, who is spiralling downward in his own attempt to deal, and trying to make him understand and realize that she is there for him. (Though she does not know why she's been sent to Breckon and not her own family).I really did enjoy this book. The change of POV's between the two main characters was enjoyable. The story was original and C.K. Kelly Martin is a good writer. She can get the reader interested in her book and pull the reader in for more. For example, we know right away that Breckon's sister died, nothing is explained up front we just get little more information here and there and it isn't until the end that we really read what happened. Also, we wonder how Breckon and Ashlyn are connected, and it isn't until the end that we find out. But it's done in a way that the story is spread out, and we don't just get hit with a whack of explaination at the end, it's written so well that that doesn't happen.Overall, My Beating Teenage Heart was a heartfelt read that I enjoyed. The story, the writing and the characters are all worth it, and made for an "unputdownble" book!

[a_reader_of_fictions · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite bloggers, even though she doesn't blog much anymore, is Presenting Lenore. She's helping to host a twitter book club, the aim of which is to read books that are amazing but do not have nearly enough buzz. This is the first selection. Well, it definitely isn't well known enough, since I totally thought Yesterday was going to be Martin's debut. Apparently, she's written four books before that one.

The opening of My Beating Teenage Heart is quit alarming. You're thrown into some weird dream-state type thing with the heroine whose name you don't yet know. It's odd and mystical and it's hard to tell whether anything is real or a dream or what. Actually, the book continues to be this way. Ashlyn learns a bit about herself, but what she figures out results in more questions than answers. Breckon (we also get some chapters from his perspective) is mired in depression.

For me, this is one of those books where how much I likes it depended entirely on the explanation of what's going on. The writing is decent, but didn't especially resonate with me. The characters are both so whacked out on grief or confusion that I had trouble connecting to them. The plot is so strange, requiring some serious suspension of disbelief, but, if she pulled it off with the ending, it could definitely make the book epic.

Without a doubt, I can honestly say that My Beating Teenage Heart is unlike any YA book I've read before. It picks up steam very slowly, but, by the end, I was definitely engaged. For the first hundred or so pages, the melodrama of the narration irritated me, especially given the fogginess of Ashlyn's memory. Plus, she made so many assumptions that seemed strange to me.

Anyway, having now finished the book, I'm still not sure how I feel about it. On some levels, it was definitely really cool and thought provoking, and I'm certainly glad to have read it, but there were also aspects with which I did not reconcile. My main issue with the book I can't express to clearly without risking spoilers, but, basically, I do not get why Ashlyn's memory would ever work that way. However, on the plus side again, Martin can write the heck out of a steamy scene.

Looking at those labels at the bottom of the post, you might notice that they're not super happy times themes. Nor is the book at all light and fluffy. At all. Recommended to fans of Ilsa J. Bick and Laurie Halse Anderson. Although I didn't love this, I am now definitely looking forward to reading Yesterday more than I was before.