Unlock The Secrets Of Second Hand Heart Conceived By Catherine Ryan Hyde Accessible Through Physical Edition

thought that it was rubbish, Vida read more like a thirteen year old than a woman of twenty and right from the start this grated on me.
She was childish amp immature and as a result, any burgeoning relationship between her and Richard was completely unbelievable, OK, she may have led a sheltered life but that makes the plausability of their relationship even more questionable, Why would a grown man grieving his wife entertain the whims of a child, Was the heart enough I think not, I was a little disappointed in Second Hand Heart, It didn't catch my attention like all other of Hyde's books, At aboutof the way through I

was wondering where she was going with this, The plot didn't have a clear direction and wasn't really that entertaining, It doesn't get much better as you progress either, If I could I would give this book, somewhere between just liking it and not really liking it, But, I erred on the nice side, I wouldn't recommend it. It's definitely not the author's best work and to me the book doesn't really go anywhere,.Second Hand Heart is now available in the US as an ebook, and thats a good thing, Publishers here didnt grab the book when it first appeared, and thats puzzling because this is an excellent novel, A young girl, Vida Spanish for life, gets a heart transplant and for the first time is free of the thought that she could die at any moment.
Hyde could have left it at that, She does not. She probes grief, love, parenthood, resentment, friendship and a variety of seemingly unrelated topics, This is not fluff reading, nor is it merely the story of Vidas heart transplant and her emergence into adulthood from the protective cocoon required by her sickly youth.
Hyde transports us on a voyage in which Vidas mother, the donor, an elderly neighbor and several other well defined characters provide threads woven together masterfully.
As is always the case with her novels, Hydes protagonist periodically drops in memorable pieces of wisdom, I particularly loved the notion that worries should come with labels on them Ill leave it to the reader to find out why.
In an afterword, the author discusses the personal origins of the story, On one hand I really loved the voice of Vida and i wanted to know what happens to her as well as her friend Ester.
But I just couldn't get past Richard, His voice didn't connect with me and I didn't relate with his grief, I don't know if it was because I only got to know Lorrie through his emails with her mom or what but even just trying to skim through his section our didn't keep my interest.

Sorry Vida and hope life treats you well! this is the story of a girl

Except that she didn't exactly cry a river or drown the whole world.
Instead, it's a story of a new heart, growing up, and learning to let go, It is incredibly heartwarming and while not much of a tearjerker it does make you think about things a little differently, The writing style was beautifully written and easy to understand, The main character Vida was incredibly relatable and her adventure was an interesting one for sure, I felt the most for Richard and in the end I actually found myself enjoying the resolution, I like that her story and his didn't have the ending you might have assumed and that things were left sort of open ended for both of them.
I had the good fortune of connecting with Catherine Ryan Hyde this summer as a result of an adolescent literature class I took.
One of the books I was required to read was Ryan Hydes Jumpstart the World, which addressed some LGBTQ issues, I really liked Jumpstart the World, and was stoked when my class had the opportunity to visit with her via Skype, I was also thrilled to have the opportunity to get a copy Secondhand Heart in order to read and review it, I am so glad I did, I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it,

The narrative of Secondhand Heart is shared betweenyear old Vida, who is in desperate need of a new heart, andyear old Richard, who is the husband of the donor whose heart finds itself beating in Vidas body.
Their story is told in form of journal entries, which may take some getting used to, but it helps make the character voices more authentic and distinctive.


What I really like about this book is its sheer, raw emotion, Vida has spent her entire life in a fairly sterile, safe environment due to the fragility of her heart and health, When she gets the unexpected news she is getting a “new” heart, she is thrust back into the world of the living.
She isnt prepared to live because shes been preparing to die, Richard has lost his wife in a tragic accident and he no longer knows how to live, He doesnt allow himself to grieve, and instead agrees to meet Vida, Thus begins an interesting journey fueled by the cellular memories of Vidas donor heart, and Richards inability to let go of the heart that is no longer his to love.
Even if you dont really believe in the whole cellular memory thing, the story of Vida and Richard will at least give you something to think about.

So I was reluctant to read another Catherine Ryan Hyde, as I had found her writing to be simple and boring.
I'm not beginningwith Goodreads , I'mfor, I may have to return to previous way , ifpages, I'm not enjoying or interested , I need to leave it unfinished, there are too many Goodreads out there , and I hope I begin to find those again soon!,stars

I love Catherine Ryan Hyde's books, Whenever I select one of her titles, I feel like I am accepting a warm hug from a beloved grandmother, How lucky that Kindle Unlimited includes so many of her titles,

But I didn't really like thisnovel about a widower and the young woman that receives his wife's heart, The chapters alternate between Richardthe grieving husband and Vidathe young woman who is given his wife, Laurie's heart, I much preferred the chapters told from Richard's perspective, This was a man grieving and struggling to find a way to live without the woman he had loved, On the other hand, the childish thinking and behavior of Vida made it hard for me to believe she was aoryear old woman.
While the author stresses that Vida was very sick and her mother very overprotective, I felt a lot of her actions made it hard to connect with the character.


In fact, I preferred the secondary characters Richard's mother in law and Esther, the Holocaust survivor who befriended Vida, Victor and his dog, Jax were great additions as well, Any interactions between them and the two main protagonists were always my most highlighted scenes,

I felt the first part of the novel was slower with a lot of details and then the story just sped as fast as it could to a resolution.
Once things were resolved it made me wonder why Second Hand Heart was a full length novel especially when the story resolved itself in the way I expected it too.


Overall, it did have the sweetness and charming characters that I find in a CRH novel but the plot just didn't appeal.


Goodreads review published,I didnt love this book by CRH, it was just ok, The idea around cellular memory and that memories can be stored in individual cells was interesting, However the story around the main characters of Vidaand Richard the husband who donated his wifes heart just didnt jive with me as much as I would have liked.
I did enjoy reading about Vidas road trip at the end, especially since Ive been to the north rim of the Grand Canyon and could visualize the story so clearly.
Do you believe it is possible for memory to live on in the cells of transplanted organs
The statement seems to be more Biological than Logical.
. . But believe me, it created a nice Love Story, Do read and Find out, It took me untilinto the book to really get interested in it, which was evidenced by the fact that it took me overmonths to read the firstanddays to read the last.
I also really did not like the main characters, both in personality and in voice, I have read one other book by Catherine Ryan Hyde and really enjoyed it couldn't put it down, So this was a disappointment, Overall I like the premise and the plot I just don't like the way it was told, In the end, I would not recommend this book so I gave itstars, Second Hand Heart tells the story of ayear old girl, recipient of a new heart transplanted from a woman that just died in a car accident.
The grieving husband of the dead woman agrees to be contacted by the recipient's family and from there a strange relationship ensues.

This might well be the least enjoyable book Ive read by Catherine Ryan Hyde, Somehow this surprises me. I like this author A few of her books are on my favorite shelf,
Believe me, I did my best and absolutely tried to enjoy this book but I just couldnt connect, nor empathize with the main character.
Vidas behavior is odd to say the least, That continuous childlike behavior was rather irritating, As for Richard, the dead wife's husband, I truly liked him a lot but his actions were equally hard for me to understand.
Here and there, there were some valuable messages that I could take away about the human condition, the human heart and about cellular memory.

The idea behind the story is interesting enough, Theres no doubt that people are affected by transplanted organs that goes for the donors family as for the recipient, but I guess I didnt connect with its execution, particularly not translated into Vida's story.
Vida isand has never had much of a life, Struggling along with a lifethreatening heart condition, her whole life has been one long preparation for death, But suddenly she is presented with a donor heart, and just in time, Now she gets to do something she never imagined she'd have to do: live,

Richard is ayearold man whos just lost his beloved wife, Lorrie, in a car accident, Still in shock and not even having begun the process of grieving, he is invited to the hospital to meet the young woman who received his wifes donor heart.


Vida takes one look at Richard and feels shes loved him all her life, And tells him so. Richard assumes shes just a foolish young girl, And maybe she is. Or maybe theres truth behind the theory of cellular memory, and maybe it really is possible for a heart to remember, at least for a time, on its own.


Second Hand Heart is both a story of having to learn to live for the first time, and having to learn to live all over again.
Vida isyears old and dying, She's been dying her entire life, Not in the vague way that we are all destined to die, but in a way that has led her through multiple heart surgeries in her short life.
This time, it's for real, Her doctors are talking weeks if she's lucky, She's been bumped to the top of the waiting list for heart transplants, And then she gets a new heart and she's able to start living,

On the flip side, Richard has everything, A job and a wife that he loves, Until he loses Lorrie in a tragic car accident, He chooses to donate her organs and Vida gets her heart, Vida's and Richard's lives are forever entwined after that, The first time Richard walks into her hospital room after the transplant, Vida tells him that she loves him, She's never met him before, but she feels a deep, romantic love for him,

At my old job, I was the tiniest of tiny cogs in the transplant process, I did electrocardiograms on the donors so that doctors could make sure the heart was in good working order from an "electrical" standpoint.
I was glad that the families had chosen to donate their loved ones' organs, but I hated that part of the job.
I never saw the recipients the actual transplant happened in larger hospitals, so I only saw the donors, and I knew that this beautiful child, wife, father, loved one would not be going home to his or her family.
They were all beautiful and they were all young, I didn't do it often, but I was never able to detach myself from the sadness on that end, It was hard for me, to say the least,

It was nice to read a book where I could really sort of experience the life that comes out of such a tragic loss/beautiful gift.
Vida, meaning life in Spanish, is a perfect mix of wisdom and innocence, She's led a very sheltered life by necessity, She hasn't been able to get out and run around and play, simply because her weak heart wouldn't let her, She's experienced most of her life from the inside of her house, looking out at the world through a window, Staring the reality of death down daily has led her to realize what is important in life though, Relationships, fairness, and honesty are always important to her, After the transplant, she wants to see as much of the world as she can and face everything on her own terms.
She knows how much she's missed and she's making up for lost time,

Richard says something that really made me think, Vida's mother asks him why he decided to donate, and his first response is a stock reply of "Wouldn't anybody" He talks through it a little and eventually comes to a reason that feels real.
"I know why I donated, I wanted people to never forget her, As many as possible. This way I knew you would never forget her, and neither would Vida, And anybody who loved Vida, And the woman in Tiburon who got her corneas, she'll never forget Lorrie, and neither will her family and everybody who loves her.
And I could go on with the other organs, but, . . I wanted as big a group of people as possible to think about Lorrie on an ongoing basis, Not just get over it and forget, " That's possibly one of the most compelling reasons I've ever come across for organ donation, Sure, saving a stranger's life should be the best reason, but in the throes of grief, it's got to be hard to think about that.
Something that helps others remember your loved one That might get through,

Vida's best friend is her neighbor, Ethel, aish concentration camp survivor, You know I'm drawn to concentration camp stories, so I liked the element, There was a reason for it though, After Vida's transplant, they have a thoughtful conversation about the purpose of a life that came so close to death, Ethel has lived her life in a bubble, almost afraid to live, Vida is choosing to seize the opportunity she's been given and squeeze everything she can out of it,

The biggest part of the book revolves around cellular memory, I don't think I've ever heard about this, but I'm curious, Apparently there's a hypothesis that our memories do not reside solely in our brain our very cells might retain memories, Think about what that would mean in organ donation, Scientists are studying recipients who suddenly develop traits similar to the donors whose organs they've received, or even "remember" things that never happened to them but did happen to the donor.
It was pretty fascinating. There's a brief overview at the sitelinkSan Francisco Medical Society page,

I liked the way things turned out, I won't go into it, I just wasn't sure that I was very happy with the obvious ending, but there was a twist that made me very happy.


I was expecting sort of a light chicklit book when I started this, I'm left with a lot to think over, and I'm very happy about that, There's a lot going on in this shortish novel, I recommend it. .