Darkly Beating Heart

by Lindsay Smith

No one knows what to do with Reiko. She is full of hatred. All she can think about is how to best hurt herself and the people closest to her. After a failed suicide attempt, Reiko&#x;s parents send her from their Seattle home to spend the summer with family in Japan to learn to control her emotions. But while visiting Kuramagi, a historic village preserved to reflect the nineteenth-century Edo period, Reiko finds herself slipping back in time into the life of Miyu, a young woman even more bent on revenge than Reiko herself. Reiko loves being Miyu, until she discovers the secret of Kuramagi village, and must face down Miyu&#x;s demons as well as her own.

• ISBN10: 1626720444
• ISBN13: 9781626720442
• Publish Date: 25 October 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Roaring Brook Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 272
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

A Darkly Beating Heart was dark, disturbing, and unfortunately super awkward and unbelievable. Reiko is spending her Summer in Japan, and she's hating it. But she hates everything and everyone anyway. She lets her anger fester and most of her thoughts are consumed with her need for revenge on all those who have wronged her. Including herself. Then she, her cousin, and her entourage head to a historical village and things get weird fast. Reiko is thrust hundreds of years into the past, living the life of a girl who just might be more hell bent on revenge than she is.

I absolutely love the premise of A Darkly Beating Heart! It's just so different from anything I've read before. Reiko really is just obsessed with her dark thoughts. I love how she loved being in Miyu's life and thinking that she's helping her. The whole creepy village was pretty awesome. But I never believed Reiko as a character. No one sits around thinking about how they're going to get their revenge. She is constantly thinking things like "I will have my revenge!" "They will all pay!" "I deserved revenge!" It's all super, duper awkward. I could totally get behind Reiko having dark, violent thoughts, but the constant thinking about revenge was not believable at all. Not to mention that she never actually plots her revenge. She's just going to have her revenge because of reasons.

There's really not much for me to say about A Darkly Beating Heart. I loved it when Reiko wasn't thinking about her revenge. I loved getting little pieces of what happened to send her to the hospital and eventually to Japan. I really loved the time travel, life-swap aspect as well. But nothing was really developed at all. The book is super short, so everything happens too fast and almost without reason (insta-love!!!). It was just very very awkward to read.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight
There were lots of things I really enjoyed about this book, and a few that I didn't as much. But I think overall, the good outweighed the bad for sure, so that is a win, right? Let's break it down!

The Good:

• The setting! Japan is a bucket-list travel destination for me, so I was tickled to see a book set there! Also, it made me really want sushi, because there was a lot of food talk in the book! But yeah, the setting was phenomenal, I loved that aspect for sure.


• Since it was set in Japan, there was cultural diversity of course, but that wasn't even the only diversity in the book! There were some LGBT+ themes too, which was such a win! While I can't speak on a personal level about the representations, it appeared to be incredibly well researched and thought out.


• The historical part was fabulous. I think I liked that part of the story more than the present day, in fact. I was so drawn in by the Japanese history, and the commentary on the role of women in that time period, and I was so invested in the outcome of that storyline.


• I was definitely kept guessing! I wasn't sure what would become of Reiko and her anger and self harming behaviors, or even what the catalyst was/would be. I also was definitely interested to figure out how/if the whole historical storyline would impact Reiko's modern day life, and of course how that particular story would wrap up too.

The Not as Good:

• Oddly, I think this book could have benefitted from more pages, which is something I almost never say.  But by the end, I felt like there was almost too much I was a little unclear about, and that left me wanting a bit more. Both with Reiko as a character, and with the plot, I felt like they could have been fleshed out just a bit more.


• I didn't quite understand Reiko. Maybe that's a good thing, because she is one dark character. She is very unhappy, that is clear, and she seeks revenge on anyone she's perceived to have wronged her in some way. I just never got a real sense of why. I mean, yes, I get that she is just a generally unhappy person with some very clear issues. But the whole need for vengeance was something that I simply didn't understand about her character.


• The ending left me a little confused, honestly. I won't say anything more, but just be aware that it did. But maybe you won't be confused, and then you can explain it to me? Great. ;)

Bottom Line: I changed my rating on this about ten times- I went back and forth between 3 and 3.5 stars over and over. Let's say it's like, 3.25? I liked it, and I think had I felt a little better about the ending, it would have been a sure win, because I loved a lot of aspects about this book. Definitely worth a read, it's fast paced and the historical part was amazing.