Second Hand Heart

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

[Leah]

Nineteen year old Vida isn’t like many girls her age. She can’t go to school, doesn’t have many friends, and can barely leave the house due to the fact her heart is failing and she desperately needs a transplant. When a heart becomes available, and the transplant is successful, Vida is determined to live life like never before. When Vida meets Richard, the man whose wife’s heart now beats in Vida, she immediately falls in love with him but Richard dismisses her claims. How is it possible for Vida to love him when she doesn’t even know him? Could it be that the heart she now has beating in her chest is remembering the love for him, is that even possible? As Vida learns to live life again properly, she can’t shake the feeling that there’s somewhere she has to go and visit. But where?

Last year I received a proof copy of When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde. I’d never heard of Catherine or her books but I decided to read it anyway as it sounded like my kind of thing. I absolutely loved the book and decided to pick up all of Catherine’s other novels. I then saw she had signed a new book deal with her British publishers and I couldn’t wait for the first book in that deal Second Hand Heart as it sounded brilliant. I managed to get a proof copy a while back and with the release date approaching I decided it was time to give it a read.

Catherine Ryan Hyde’s books definitely fall into the ‘women’s fiction’ category than the ‘chick lit’ category but I read both styles of books and after reading When I Found You, I knew I liked Catherine’s style of writing. She’s been compared to Jodi Picoult which is a strange one; one I disagree with in fact as I think she has her own writing style. Second Hand Heart, I’m sure you can guess, is about a second hand heart and what it means to have a heart that was someone else’s. It’s an interesting subject and is one I’ve never actually thought of before but Ryan Hyde presents a great argument as to whether or not it is possible for a heart to take over memories and things into a new donor.

What surprised me most about the book was how it was written. Instead of being written like a proper book, the book is actually written in the form of a journal. And while I was a little hesitant about that at first, what with the short chapters, I soon got used to it and begun to enjoy it. What also helps the book is the fact that it’s written with journal entries from both Vida and Richard with alternating sections of the book, giving us insight into both of their lives at any given moment. With that writing style it meant we got both sides of the story: what it was like for Vida to know she could die at any moment whilst waiting for a new heart before receiving the new heart and beginning to live life properly again. On the flipside we had Richard, grieving for his wife, who goes to visit this young girl who has received the heart and has to come to terms with the fact there is someone, Vida, that has his wife’s heart and has to deal with that fact.

To complicate matters that little bit more, as soon as Vida sets eyes on Richard she falls in love with him and again we broach the question of whether Vida loves him only because of whose heart she has. It’s such a simple plot but it begs a lot of questions and I very much enjoyed getting lost in the story. What helped, though, was the fact that I loved both Vida and Richard. Vida just seemed to have an innocence to her that is very rare in books these days and I just wanted to shield her away from the world whilst I also wanted her to go out into the world and explore. Because Vida believes she’s in love with Richard, it would have been very easy for him to come over as a bit of a sleazeball, particularly since there’s an age gap between the two, but thankfully he didn’t and I actually liked him and felt sorry for him in equal measure. Another character I really warmed to was Esther, Vida’s elderly neighbour. She was such a lovely character.

Second Hand Heart is a great book about surviving despite the odds, and I loved getting to know Vida, Richard, Esther and Vida’s mum. I don’t personally think it was as good as When I Found You but I still loved reading it nevertheless. Ryan Hyde seems to have found her very own niche market with her books and no one writes books similar to hers and I look forward to many more in the future! I hugely recommend you pick up one of her books, they’re really worth reading!