This Heart of Mine by C.C. Hunter is a young adult mystery that is also a feel good story. Our main character is dying and is given a second chance at life when she gets a heart transplant. The heart causes her to dream and experience weird things, leading her to work with the donors brother to find out how he really died. It's good writing and a very enjoyable read.

I was very excited for this book when I requested it but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me. I still may give it another try in the future.

I love C.C. Hunter. Not only was I committed to this love story, I was so intrigued that I couldn't put it down.. I also love that Hunter is so honest about things that affecting teens, such as necessary trips to the ob/gyn, or dealing with a parent's depression. I will continue to recommend her books to teens and adults alike.

This started out strong but there was entirely too much going on for. E to really end up loving it. The end felt like it was crammed together in the last 15%, tying up all lose ends. I really did love Leah and Matt and their growing relationship. They were terrific together and that was the bright spot for sure.

This weepy novel pushes the bounds of plausibility, I'm afraid. Consider it a teenaged equivalent of a soap opera, just in hardback... with a whole lot of awkward sexuality thrown in. If you're looking for John Green, look elsewhere.

I don't even know where to start with what I just read. I had such a hard time following the story and couldn't get invested in the characters and their plot lines.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

I read this book over a year ago and somehow totally forgot to write my thoughts about it. I remember feeling the need to let the story sit with me before writing my review. This was a heartwarming, charming and totally emotional novel about a young teen on the heart transplant list. Living each day with the struggles of wearing an artificial heart in a backpack on her back, not knowing if she will get the transplant she needs before the end arrives. I loved the relationship between Leah and Matt. It was definitively a beautiful contemporary YA romance that isn't seen often. I thought the novel was very well written with great depth in the characters and found myself falling in love with them bringing tears to my eyes. This book left me with a warm feeling inside.

I give it a 4.5 stars out of 5 and look forward to more by CC Hunter.

I loved that this heartwarming(pun not intentional, promise) tale was steeped in mystery. Did the donor really kill himself? Well you'll have to read to see. This book was really so much more well detailed than I anticipated. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you for providing a copy of this book for review however I was unable to open the file for this document unfortunately! Apologies.

What is going on? This is the fourth book in a row I have not liked. I know this book was personal to the author and there were times I felt touched but it just wasn't very good. The added thing with seeing memories of how the boy died who the main character got her heart from was so unnecessary. And why is this girl constantly talking about her breasts? The two characters are drawn to each other since the beginning and they are confused by it... That trope bothered me. Then, there is the whole "she has changed into this New Leah" which at times I could relate to but other times it was just annoying. The Leah thing being a reader was also played off too much. Just why?

It's not often that I try to look at sick-lit. I wasn't sure how I would feel about this book, but I was giving it a chance because I thought the subject matter is important. I'm really glad I picked up this book to read. It as a great title to read.

The characters are engaging, especially the protagonist. I liked the interaction between Eric and Leah who are both struggling in their own issues. Leah's afraid her body will reject the heart she was lucky to get, and Eric is struggling with the loss of his twin, whose heart beats on in Leah.

This book is agonizing in all of the best ways.

This arc was jumbled together in such a confusing way that I didn't want to have to rate and review it, but it seems if I don't, it will negatively affect my feedback percentage. Therefore, I'm going to just put it at a 3, because while the story seemed like it could have been decent, it was formatted in such a crazy way that I'm not sure how to feel. I assume it may have been a mistake of some kind, an earlier edition of the ARC, or just an extremely poorly formatted ARC. Either way, I don't feel comfortable rating it not knowing if this is the way it will be in the actual book or not. It switches constantly from one character's POV to the other. It's just a mess. It took away from my enjoyment of the novel, and I hope it doesn't look like that now. That being said, I've enjoyed previous books by this author, and I will continue to read her work in the future.

Hunter is that author that can write any book, in any genre and still end up on top. This book was deep and romantic. I loved every second of it.

I found the sex focus a little off putting - not because I don’t think teens have sex or that the sex plot line was too obvious for something that was not integral to the story. That piece threw me out of the book a little but other than that I absolutely LOVED it so I can definitely look beyond it. Also, it’s amazing to know that this story is based on real experiences, I can’t even fathom how difficult that would be.

I had a difficult time falling into the writing of This Heart of Mine when I first attempted to read it. I figured it was my not being in the mood for this kind of story, but after attempting it a number of times since then I'm finding that I'm still having the same issue. I'm simply chalking it up to the fact that C.C. Hunter's writing style isn't for me, and that I'm sure many others will love it--I wish I was one of them.

This was cool. I've read books by C.C. Hunter before, and this was very different from the paranormal YA books I was used to reading. I liked this a lot, and while I thought the ending all happened a bit suddenly, it was a good read. I think I wanted to see more conflict in the ending, and since it all sort of wraps up within a few pages it seemed really incomplete. Luckily, the characters were enough to keep me entertained through a rather strange plot that sort of went nowhere, and while I wanted to spend a lot more time talking about Eric and Matt and their relationship, it seemed to skip over it a lot.

I wanted to read this book because the blurb caught my attention and it sounded really interesting. The book started off strong and I enjoyed the premise but as I kept reading the story it started losing steam. Leah was a little all over the place. I was expecting her to be more reserved given her illness. with her behavior. One minute she was shy and then the next minute she was kissing a boy in her kitchen while her mom watched unbeknownst to her. I wouldn’t mind Leah kissing Matt in her kitchen but the thing was she didn’t know if he was the correct twin. Okay…….As the story continues Matt’s twin brother, Eric goes missing and is found dead. Matt is convinced his twin was murdered and wouldn’t have committed suicide. I really liked the aspect of finding out what really happened to Eric. Sadly the execution was lacking. I felt like the story was repetitive at times and it was missing something. I actually ended up skimming to the end to see what happened and that was lackluster as well. I know this is a story near and dear to the author but sadly it just didn’t work in my favor.

‘THIS HEART OF MINE’ IS ALL ABOUT HEART & MOVING ON TOGETHER

At first glance, ‘This Heart of Mine’ by C.C. Hunter seems like any other coming of age story or high school romance. Even the first chapter is sweet and goes along the same lines of a John Hughes love story. It becomes quickly apparent that this book is nothing like what you’d expect.

Seventeen-year-old Leah MacKenzie has settled on the fact that she’s going to die. She’s got an artificial heart, a rare blood type, and almost no chance of getting another hard. She’s accepted that her death is inevitable. And instead of this making the character a sad and morose person, she’s calm and trying to make the best out of the time she has left, more for her parents than anything else.

Of course, that all changes when a boy she knows at school dies from an apparent suicide. Now she’s smacked in the face with the fact that she’s not dying and she needs to change her outlook on things. No more artificial heart, no more knowing that she won’t get the chance to survive the year, no more keeping away from her friends because the certainty she feels at her death and the pain that it would bring them is gone.

Leah gets a chance to live and it’s kind of awe-inspiring to watch her go through that change and understand that there is more out there for her and she actually has a chance to experience it. This feeling doesn’t go away once she starts having dreams about the boy who killed himself, dreams that point out that maybe it wasn’t a suicide at all.

That’s where his twin brother comes in. Matt, who Leah always found endearing and who she had a crush on before she was sequestered to her home life in fear of an infection and death, is having strange dreams. Like Leah, they lead him to believe that his brother didn’t kill himself. His anger and determination lead him to Leah and they learn how to live while seeking out the truth about what happened to his brother.

‘This Heart of Mine’ surprised me with how fleshed out Leah and Matt are. Often times when books switch back and forth between the characters, as this book does from chapter to chapter, I feel a little underwhelmed and as if the author is doing this because they have no sense of the plot so why not give us all the thoughts instead. That’s not the case with this book.

C.C. Hunter uses every single moment she has to flesh out her characters but move the story forward in a way that makes you feel invested AF in both characters. Because of this you worry about their loneliness, you worry about their families, and you worry about what plagues them at night. And that’s what we want from our characters and stories, we want to become invested and watch them grow.

And at the end of the day ‘This Heart of Mine’ is a contemporary book that redefines what it means to move on and teaches a lesson about second, third, and fourth chances: They might come at unexpected times and in unexpected ways, but they’re ours for the taking.

Leah and Matt took that chance, together.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Leah MacKenzie is in desperate need of a heart. She is basically stuck in her house trying to complete her bucket list, until she is able to receive a new heart, and is only kept alive by the artificial heart that pumps for her that she wears in a backpack. Time is not on her side either, Leah needs a heart soon or else she will die.

Matt knows there is no way that his twin brother killed Eric himself in the forest, even though things have been rough since their father died and his relationship with his girlfriend has always been rocky, he would never take his own life. He also knows without a doubt that his brother would want any organs of use to be donated.

Leah has always had a crush on Matt, and Matt on Leah. So when he sees her going in to the hospital shortly after the paperwork is signed for his brother's organ harvest, he knows in his gut that she is going to get his brother's heart. What they never expected is how both Leah and Matt would be plagued with nightmares about running through the forest. Could Eric be sending them a message about his killer? Will the pair be able to solve this mystery before they become his next victim?

I'm not quite sure why, but this book just fell a little flat for me. I liked reading about the romantic connection between Leah and Matt, I'm always a sucker for some romance, but Matt's inability to see reason and think about his own safety when it came to solving his brother's murder just didn't feel authentic to me. Also, I think the mystery almost took away from my enjoyment of the story in some ways. I loved reading about Leah and Matt falling in love and how Leah mysteriously started to take on traits that Eric had. I would have much rather read a book the skewed more towards that. Recommended for libraries where atypical mysteries and romance are popular.