In a Heartbeat

Two Girls, One Heart
(Love at first sight?...nah, that's not even close)
Protagonists and their Perspectives

I was pretty much running out of good books to read when I spotted a copy of "In a Heartbeat", by Loretta Ellsworth, laying on the shelf helplessly trying to convince someone to read it. It's interesting at first because I've noticed that there are actually two protagonist. According to the part I'm up to right now, a girl named Eagan dreams of becoming a professional figure skater and to win the Olympics but is always fighting with her mother, who used to also skate, because of different opinions. Then one day she crashed her head on a sharp point in the ice rink and is therefore, dead. Amelia is the other protagonist who has a heart failure and is blessed with Eagan's heart in order to live a normal life. Eagan's behavior, personalities and words seem to live inside Amelia's new heart now. Based on what I'm reading now, I feel that it was the author's purpose for applying both of their perspectives in the story.

In Eagan's world, she seems to handle things too easily, causing her to not appreciate what she has that others don't have. She's always wasting time fighting with her mother and now that she's dead, it's just too late to fix the wound. She could have stayed alive if she was just a little bit less than half an inch away from the sharp point. There's nothing she can do when her heart's not even with her body, you know. Even if she's desperate to fix up their relationship, what else could she have done when her heart is beating inside a body of a stranger's? Her perspective is important in understanding that she should have done better things then to fight with someone who only wants the best for her. Time is priceless. It's like in the book "Romeo and Juliet" because people die so unexpectedly. Tybalt, then Romeo, then Juliet. Even though it was wrong for Capulet to suddenly force Juliet to marry Paris, it was understandable because life can be shorter than you think.

In Amelia's side, she seems to understand the pain of not haven't something. Because of her congestive heart failure, she is always home schooled and stays most of her life in the hospital with the tubes and pipes sticking in her body. She wishes to go on school trips and have friends who she could talk to. When she gets the chance to have a heart transplant surgery, she is overwhelmed with guilt but can't stop her happiness. It's strange that if you think about the fact that Amelia was allowed to stay alive because Eagan was dead. She has never experienced the fun of life and if you think about it, life and death is pretty much just less than half an inch away.

Both of these perspective are important to make readers think about how life could be so short and that there's no time to waste around. Eagan died so unexpectedly in an accident and Amelia, who had believed that her life would end soon, ended up have a new heart and a new life. Of course, you'll never know how something will feel unless you've experienced it before, and this was why two perspectives were given to readers in order for us to understand the best—or maybe the worse of both sides.

To be honest, so far, I'm really liking this book in which I had started yesterday. I was able to look through the minds of both of the characters that have completely different personalities and behaviors but are struggling in the battle of life and death. The two perspectives really made a big difference in the reading experiences and understanding the book better. A small mistake can cost a life and thousands of regrets and like I said before, time is priceless.