My Heartbeat
September 7, 2009
My Heartbeat
Garret Freymann-Weyr
Ellen has been in love with James since the seventh grade. She loves her brother Link (James’s best friend) just as much. The three of them have a close-knit relationship, the boys sharing a special bond Ellen accepts she isn’t part of. Ellen has just started ninth grade at the school James and Link are about to graduate from. One of her new friends casually mentions that she thinks James and Link are a couple.
So Ellen wonders. Finally, she asks them, but still she doesn’t get a clear answer—because neither of them is sure.
My Heartbeat cover
As they each begin to understand further, an interesting point is brought up. James tells Ellen that she was their insurance. So long as she was around, they were safe—nothing that shouldn’t be happening would end up happening.
My Heartbeat is a story of fear and expectations, and what it means to really know someone. There are unwritten social laws yet to be understood, and a mind with a heartbeat yet to be formed. It’s a love triangle that you don’t even realize is there until you take a step back and stop to think. It’s a love triangle where each one truly loves the other two, and that, I think is something to be admired.
Together and apart, they deal with their own issues. From all sorts of rebellion, to music, to advanced math, running seven miles every morning, searching for happy endings, sketching strangers, and learning to see—to really see, the three of them develop subtly but beautifully.
James has experienced much more than either of the siblings, in terms of sex and life in general, and speaks with wisdom that he doesn’t acknowledge. Ellen and Link are both under the guidance of a pair of loving parents: a mother with the ability to understand what is unsaid, and a father who wants nothing more than for his children to develop their own minds (so long as they conform to certain boundaries).
There is no lack of love in this story.
In the words of one of the characters, a good book is a reflection of some kind of truth. This was a good book.
