Harlequin HQN
Featuring: Courtney Kaufman; Max Cooper
352 pages ISBN: 0373779852 EAN: 9780373779857 Kindle: B00LE6J1AE Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List
THE SHAPE OF MY HEART is book three in the I Want it
That Way trilogy a
series following different roommates living in apartment
2B
together during college. This is a young adult series,
and
the writing style reflects that. I've read the first two
in the series, so I knew going in that the whole
book 'feel' is young. There's a sweet simplicity to the
writing, though, that drew me into the lives of these
young
adults facing some huge challenges that many older adults
would quail from. The 2B heroes and heroines have all
clawed their happiness from a hardscrabble life that has
demanded unflinching honesty and flat-out hard work, and I
have found all the characters to be admirable and
praiseworthy, without being too good to be true.
Courtney Kaufman feels not very pretty, with her large
Jewish nose and her large butt and hips. She's not
worried
about these minor issues, though, because she knows what
real problems are. Courtney's soul mate, her best friend
through childhood, then turned boyfriend in adolescence,
died at the edge of 17 of leukemia. Courtney still talks
to him in her mind constantly. After Eli died, Courtney
got hooked on the numbness of prescription meds, and her
family put her in rehab. Courtney has left the bosom of
her family to go to college in another state, also
rebelling by getting multiple piercings and alt-hair.
Max Cooper has been on his own since he was 16, kicked out
by his abusive father after a car accident where Max was
driving resulting in the paralysis of his younger brother.
After years of not having any contact with his family, Max
has to go home for his grandfather's funeral. He asks
Courtney go home with him to act as a buffer. They
travel
to Rhode Island and back on Max's motorcycle, and open up
to each other along the way. The burgeoning trust that
develops between the two is absolutely beautiful. There
are so many poignant moments, and I found myself crying in
my bathroom late at night as I was devouring the pages
while the rest of my house was asleep. I couldn't put the
book down until I knew how it ended.
THE SHAPE OF MY HEART is a New Adult book, and so there is
the required
angst in the story. It is not immature angst, though, or
over-the-top behavior by unbelievable characters. Max and
Courtney are lovely, down-to-earth people who have
legitimate issues from terrible things that have happened
in their lives. Their behaviors did not make me feel like
they were in need of psychiatric help, either, but just in
need of the healing that they eventually reached with the
loving help of themselves, each other, and their friends.
I found the characters to be refreshing, and I could
relate
to them.
Aguirre's THE SHAPE OF MY HEART touched my heart,
and gave me a deeply satisfying ending for two wonderful
characters who deserve every drop of happiness they can
get.
Some people wait decades to meet their soul mate. Courtney
Kaufman suspects she met hers in high school—only to lose
him at seventeen. Since then, Courtney's social life has
been a series of meaningless encounters, though she's made
a
few close friends along the way. Especially her roommate,
Max Cooper, who oozes damaged bad-boy vibes from every
pore.
Max knows about feeling lost—he's been on
his own since he was sixteen. Now it's time to find out if
he can ever go home again, and Courtney's the only one he
trusts to go with him. But the trip to Providence could
change everything….
It started out so simple.
One misfit helping another. Now Max will do anything to
show
Courtney that for every heart that's ever been broken,
there's another that can make it complete.
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