This was my first read of this kind and believe me, it takes a while to really get to the plot. It starts slow but the story of grief and mourning will have you in your feelings. Great choice for narrator, he does a great job of instilling the story and portraying the emotion.

The Heartbeat Library by Laura Imani Messina is a story about grief, loss, and the path to healing. Shuichi is cleaning out his mother’s house after she has passed away. A young boy, Kenta, lives nearby and becomes friends with Shuichi. The story slowly unfolds about Shuichi and Kenta. You also learn about Shuichi’s past and how his grief is not only about his mother. Shuichi and Kenta end up visiting the inspiration for the book, an actual heartbeat library in Japan.

I would recommend this book for all readers, it will resonate with people who have dealt with a loss. The process of healing and grief is difficult and not the same for everyone, Shuichi carefully unpacks his grief and learns how relationships help him live again. This is a story that you settle in and let it unfold, it’s lyrical and inspirational while warming your heart to how we can connect to the people around us. I listened to the audiobook, the narrator has a hypnotic voice that is quite pleasing and easy to follow.

Thank you RBmedia and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

The Heartbeat Library is a tender and poignant book which took my breath away! I received the audiobook from Netgalley which I was happy to listen to.

It didn't not disappoint, it has a calming essence and touches on deep themes of grief, loss, growing up and unexpected friendships.

When Shuichi, an illustrator, return home to Kamakura to deal with the aftermath of his mother's death, he was not expecting to deal with a daily intruder to her house. Every afternoon a young boy enters the garage and takes a few objects from the myriad of boxes. What grows from this is a beautiful friendship between Shuichi and Kenta, aged 8. Both the main characters touched my heart in different ways. They are both naive, gentle-hearted and isolated in themselves. But both have beautiful hearts and I loved getting to know them.

Japanese fiction always is a more measured and thoughtful form of literature and this one is no different. It's not about the destination but the characters journey and how they adapt and develop along the way. You expect beautiful descriptions, thoughtful and philosophical prose and that is what you get here. At times I inwardly gasped at some of the beautiful phrasing. I also enjoyed getting to know the background behind of the kanji and how different symbols come together to form the final phrase or word.

This is a melancholy story but one that will touch your heart and stay in your conscious for along time.

If you liked the book "Before The Coffee Gets Cold" you'll like this book. It made me cry, laugh, and feel all the emotions. It really is a beautiful story between the main characters and the look into the complexity of human emotions.

'The Library of Heartbeats' is a heartwarming story about mourning and healing.

The story is quite emotional, but it takes a while to settle in and engage the reader. That said, the ending was very strong and the best part of the book, especially when it came to the heartbeat clips.

Another thing that I didn't love was the way the timeline was handled. I was often lost as to where we were timewise and it got me out of the narration's pace.

And yet, the characters were interesting and the audiobook well managed.

This audiobook was pretty good! I liked the story and how it jumped from timeline to timeline. I think it was a little bit slow, which made it hard to stick with but the ending was definitely worth it. I love the different culture that this book talks about and the characters were great!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

The heartbeat library was an amazing experience. The pacing is slow and grounds you in the story. The narrator was good at conveying the emotions felt by the characters and the book did deliver on the premise.

This was a beautifully and powerfully written novel . Every word felt like poetry. This is a heartwarming story of family ,love , friendship and grief as one man rediscovers life and creates a new home for himself after some painful losses . You can tell the author has a great connection to this story and that the Island with the Heartbeat archives holds a special place for her. I personally am not longing to go and add my heartbeats to the archives . I loved how the heart was described throughout the novel and the beauty of the Japanese language to describe the beats of one’s heart in different situations of love , grief , excitement etc .
I read the ebook and the audiobook in tandem . The audiobook narrators voice was soothing and lyrical in his reading of the story . It was beautiful to hear the words spoken it brought a different level to the story especially with the different words for heartbeat sounds .

Thank you Netgalley and RBmedia | Recorded Books for this ALC . This is my honest review .

There is a pace, an atmosphere, that feels very distinct in Japanese literary fiction. Not universal, of course, but that I rarely find in books from other countries. It always seems to take me by surprise. It isn't just your usual 'atmospheric' or 'poetic' writing style. The descriptions exist not just for detail, but as if you are stopping to really take in a moment and place. Even when there are moments of movement or tension this carries through. Or, given the title of this book, it is rather like a steady at rest heartbeat.

If you are someone who prefers more straight forward narrative structures with early catches and rise of drama, you will honestly be bored with this book. But if you have been one of those people who have experienced how some forms of depression can make you numb and stuck in cycles, going through the days and motions, you can absolutely resonate with the protagonist and the flow of this story.

The shorter segmented chapters feel like snapshots. in some works quick shifts of perspective or time can feel jarring. At times it did here as well, but mostly, it altered the mind and felt natural in the same way that the characters were slowly trying to crack away the shells they had withdrawn into. It also caught me off guard in its revelations in a way that even some mysteries don't manage.

I cannot praise this story enough how healthy the relationships are in this. Characters weren't replacements for others. They were drawn to each other because of the energies that had been imprinted on them from other interactions. It truly folds into the line of people living on through the memory of others. It is also a very realistic approach to portraying the ways we cope. 'Returning' or 'Getting' to a better place than you are isn't a sudden reveal. It can take years. If ever.

Like the tone of this book, I took some time to think about it before rushing in to write a review. Initially I was firm that I would rank it a little lower. while I didn't leave the novel feeling swept up there was a lingering note to it. Just as we speak of needing to slow down our busy always activated lives, I think sometimes it's good for the brain as well. I think the beat of this book is going to last with me.

I’’d never heard of the library of heartbeats, a real archive of people’s heartbeats held in Japan, but was touched by the thought of it, what a beautiful idea, I had to read a book about it.
This story starts off slowly and at first seems quite muddled. As it continues, it comes together nicely and draws you in. It’s very much a slow burn and while at first I wasn’t really interested, it crept up on me and I couldn’t put it down. It’s beautifully written and narrated but difficult to describe because it is a lot of things at once. Sad but sweet, gentle but also brutal at times, heartwarming and distressing. I listened to the audio and while I enjoyed it, I think perhaps it may have been better to read so I could linger and reread parts of it. I plan to purchase the novel and take my time reading it,

With thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for my copy for review.

I haven’t loved a book so completely in a long time. This unique and gorgeous book is brimming with tender moments and artful writing. A story about love and loss in many forms, kind people making their way through what life deals them. Living in the past, present and future in honest harmony.

“Something about that memory moved him. It revealed the foresight of memory which, without us noticing, records life and presents it to us when we are finally able to understand it.”

“When we cry, we save ourselves a little.”

There is a brilliant short chapter just before part III that offers various Japanese interpretations of heartbeat sounds, like "doki doki" for an excited heart or "toku toku" for a subdued beat — and the sounds people use to describe heartbeats in many other languages. I loved this, how the words pepper the novel with their subtle meanings, and the origami heart that appears later in the book.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review. I fully enjoyed and would highly recommend this book.