Monday, June 1, 2009

Cold Hands, Warm Heart by Jill Wolfson

Dani was born with her heart on the wrong side of her body. In her fifteen years of life, she’s had more doctor’s appointments, X-rays, and tests, and eaten more green hospital Jell-O than she cares to think about. Fourteen-year-old Amanda is a competitive gymnast, her body a small package of sleek muscles, in perfect health. The two girls don’t know each other, don’t go to the same school, don’t have any friends in common. But their lives are about to collide.
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There were parts of this book that were touching and other parts that made me laugh. It was all over the map in regard to emotions.

I liked that Dani wasn't really bitter about all her medical problems. She dealt with things with a fairly positive attitude. This made her a lot more likable to me.

I think reading this novel made me a little humbler. It sort of opens your eyes to how fortunate you are just to have a heart and all the rest of your internal organs that work correctly. I know I definitely take that for granted. I probably would never have even thought about it if not for this book.

The points of view of each chapter were all different and mixed up and I sometimes had difficulty discerning who it was that the story was following. Sometimes it even switched from one paragraph to the next. It was mostly in the 3rd person, though, so eventually it identified a specific person. I found myself thinking "Jeez, can I get some labels please?"

The plot was sometimes a little boring and just plain made me sad. It wasn't something I'll be eager to read again.

Overall, I didn't have many complaints about the actual story itself, just the way in which it was presented. If you like reading about people with medical problems and how they live and deal with their issues, I recommend Cold Hands, Warm Heart.

3 out of 5 stars

1 comment:

  1. hmm sad you didn't like it so much. i'm still VERY curious about this one though :)

    ReplyDelete