Change of Heart by Shari Maurer

Reviewed by Aimee

Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Title:  Change of Heart

Author:  Shari Maurer

Ratings Explanation

Language:  Frequent exclamations involving deity.  Many instances of most swear words.  Other crude language like piss, sucked and screw you are used.

Sexual Content:  Emmi mentions her small boobs a couple times.  There is talk about kids making out, kissing, and being “players”.  Emmi and Becca make a pact to not have sex in high school, which Becca breaks when she has sex with Emmi’s boyfriend.  There is kissing and lots of talk about having sex, “and here I was all set to sleep with you.”  “I am not going to sleep with you.” “Maybe they were going to have sympathy sex again.”   A couple is told to get a room when making out.  The kisses were hot and heavy.  Someone is called a pervert.  One girl reports that she hasn’t slept with anyone at camp yet, she’s been going to bed alone.

Adult Themes:   Organ donation and transplants are major themes in this book.   High school kids get “wasted” and have sex.

Synopsis

(From the book jacket)  Shortly after her sixteenth birthday, popular varsity soccer star Emmi gets the worst possible news- she’s had myocarditis that’s destroyed her heart, putting her into congestive heart failure.  Now she can barely walk across a room without stopping to rest.  Without a heart transplant, she’ll die in a matter of months.  It’s only her growing friendship with Abe, the funny, smart teen she meets in the cardiac clinic, that cheers her up.  But difficult questions race through her mind while she waits:  Will she get a heart in time?  Will she even survive the surgery?  What if her body rejects the heart?  When tragedy strikes close to home, Emmi must rely even more on her inner strength in order to carry on.

Without a question, this was an engaging read.  Shari Maurer does an excellent job bringing the emotions, frustrations and fear of transplant patients to life in her characters.  For most of us, organ donation isn’t something we put a lot of time and effort into thinking about.  I’ve never really given a lot of in-depth thought as to how people waiting for a new heart might feel, how scared and how frustrating it must be for your whole life to be out of control, dependent on someone else.  There were so many emotions!  I finished reading this book with a new perspective on being an organ donor.  And that is what I liked about this book.  It raises awareness and helps you emotionally connect to the message it is delivering.

My conservative nature must admit that the language and sexual content in this book were very distracting from the message and emotion I was feeling.  I realize that I’m in a minority when it comes to my views on such things, but that’s how it was for me.  Booklist gives a recommended reading level of 9th-12th grade.  I would recommend 18+.

At the end of her book, Maurer gives some insightful statistics.  Each day, approximately 18 people die in the U.S. because of a shortage of organ donors.  Every 11 minutes a new name is added to the waiting list.  You can enroll in the organ donor registry in your state but you must be 18 to do so.  For more information you can visit www.donatelife.net .