Heart Shaped Rock

Heart Shaped Rock

My Rating: five-stars

Pages: 316
Disclosure: I was invited by the author to read this title in exchange for my honest and unbiased review. I received no monetary compensation, and all comments are subjective and mine alone.

Sometimes a shattered heart needs to sing to love again . . . Sixteen-year-old singer-songwriter Shaynee Sullivan hasn't so much as touched her guitar since her mom died six months ago. But when she meets a gorgeous and surprising rocker named Dean, her shattered heart begins to mend . . . and then burst at the seams. Heart-wrenching, heart-warming, and sometimes even heart-racing, Heart Shaped Rock will leave you laughing through tears and rooting for love in all its forms.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

When you sit down to read “Heart Shaped Rock,” be prepared to take and emotional hit. The book is full of deep emotional moments in the characters’ lives, especially Shaynee. I loved her character and I thought the growth Ms. Roppe was able to give Shaynee over the course of the novel was exceptional. It was moving, sometimes gut-wrenching, sometimes maddening, and sometimes heart-warming. The book runs the emotional gamut without seeming contrived or a repeat of what we’ve read over and over in some young adult novels.

The characters in the novel were colorful and lively. They were rich and deep, and felt like real people with real emotions—good and bad, right and wrong, assumptions and truths. They weren’t characters that seemed untouchable. They weren’t billionaires (although it’s nice to read about them, I can’t relate. Unless you’d like to gift me a billion or two, no?), they weren’t movie stars, or child prodigies that finished college with five doctorates at age twelve. They were regular people going through regular problems with normal reactions and emotions. And that’s what made the book so good. It was real.

The mechanics were good. I enjoyed Roppe’s writing style, though it was choppy in some areas:

“I eat a cold drumstick. I’m starving. I wander into the family room. I sit on the blue chair.”

There were just too many short sentences in a row and it made reading choppy and pulled me out of the story. But this is a small gripe in my overall enjoyment of the book.

The pacing was good throughout, for the most part. There were a few times in the middle when Shaynee and Dean were “on the outs” that I thought the story could have been given a little push, but it wasn’t enough to alter my overall feeling about the book.

Bottom line: I enjoyed “Heart Shaped Rock” and highly recommend it. I will gladly read more of Ms. Roppe’s work in the future.

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Michelle

I'm an award-winning YA and NA author... but, really? I'm the wife of an amazing man, mom of four awesome kids, a reader of words, and writer of stories. I love candles and books, think garden gnomes are creepy and M&Ms are the perfect food (especially peanut butter). I live and write in Texas, but was raised in Flint, Michigan and will always think of the Great Lakes state as home.

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