January 15, 2025
Convinced she's identified her donor, a Utah heart transplant recipient investigates the girl's life. Four months ago, 17-year-old Sydney Wells got a second chance at life thanks to a donor's heart. After some sleuthing, Sydney's sure that donor is Mia Stoddard, who died in a flash flood. Compelled to learn about Mia so "this heart won't feel like such a stranger," Sydney crashes her memorial. There, Clayton Cooper, Mia's best friend, asks Sydney to help him honor her by completing a vision board with a series of bucket list photos Mia took--the perfect opportunity for Sydney, who's pretending to be Mia's online friend, to gather information. As Sydney recreates the depicted scenes with Clayton and posts Mia's photos on Instagram to inspire others to take risks, she realizes that "working on this Mia project has given me a purpose again." But focusing on Mia threatens her long-distance friendship with fellow heart patient Chloe Munoz, who's desperately awaiting a heart yet is always ready with advice. And if Clayton learns Sydney's true motive for helping, their flirtatious budding romance could disappear. Stewart, a self-described "heart failure survivor," poignantly explores the occasionally brutal realities of organ donation and transplant for patients and their families, particularly survivor's guilt and grief. While Sydney and Clayton are multifaceted, Mia's portrayal, which is filtered through others' perceptions and the inspiration people derive from her life, occasionally feels less well-rounded. Most characters read white; Chloe is cued Latine. Alternately heart-wrenching and heartwarming.(Fiction. 14-18)
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February 1, 2025
Grades 9-12 Seventeen-year-old Sydney gets a reprieve from death when a donor heart becomes available. Post-surgery, Sydney is grateful for the extension of her life, but she is also aware that in order for her to live, someone else had to die. Although she's not supposed to, Sydney does some research and decides that her donor was most likely Mia, a girl who lived not too far away. Starting with crashing a birthday memorial service, Sydney becomes involved with Mia's world, including Clayton, Mia's best friend, who wants help to decipher and finish Mia's vision board. The more time she spends with Clayton and the closer they get, the harder it becomes to tell him about the heart donation. She also feels guilty for neglecting her best friend Chloe, who waits for a heart in California and is fading. Still, Sydney is a lively, thoughtful first-person narrator, and the story ranges from joy to sorrow without lapsing into pathos. Readers looking for a poignant yet funny love story will find it here.
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Starred review from March 1, 2025
Gr 9 Up-Stewart's latest YA romance features Sydney Wells, 17, who has recently received a heart transplant and is determined to track down the person who died so she could live. This is an incredibly emotional story about living with heart failure, waiting on an organ transplant. and the grief and guilt in its aftermath. When Sydney identifies Mia as most likely being her organ donor, she accidentally runs into Mia's grieving best friend Clayton at a memorial service celebrating Mia's life. Later, the two unexpectedly find themselves bonding while trying to fulfill Mia's bucket list for living life optimally. Sydney grapples with the guilt, warranted or not, over her improved health while watching her best friend Chloe deteriorate, waiting for her own heart transplant. VERDICT With its perfect blend of chronic illness representation, mental health exploration, and romance, this is sure to appeal to fans of books like John Green's The Fault in Our Stars or Shannon Takaoka's Everything I Thought I Knew; it's a standout addition to the genre.-Shannon O'Connor
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