Beating Heart [NOOK Book]

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Overview

This house

is mine

and

I am

its beating heart.

She is a ghost: a figure glimpsed from the corner of your eye, a momentary chill, and a memory of secret kisses and hidden passion. He is 17 years old: Evan Calhoun, warm and alive, and ever since moving to this big abandoned house, he has dreamt of her. Ghost and boy fascinate each other–until her memories and his desire collide in a moment that changes them both.

Combining verse fragments with ...

See more details below

More About This Book

Overview

This house

is mine

and

I am

its beating heart.

She is a ghost: a figure glimpsed from the corner of your eye, a momentary chill, and a memory of secret kisses and hidden passion. He is 17 years old: Evan Calhoun, warm and alive, and ever since moving to this big abandoned house, he has dreamt of her. Ghost and boy fascinate each other–until her memories and his desire collide in a moment that changes them both.

Combining verse fragments with chiseled prose, A. M. Jenkins captures the compelling voice of a long–dead ghost and the perspective of a modern teen, twining mystery and romance in this evocative, sensual, and unrelentingly engrossing novel.

Ages 14+

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
After a rocky divorce, 17-year-old Evan's mother buys a Victorian fixer-upper where she can write and, with Evan and his young sister Libby, make a home. Along with the stained glass window and gingerbread outfittings, comes the spirit of a girl who died in the house a century before. The ghost sees in Evan a reminder of her own lover (a workman's discovery of a box of papers reveals the identities of the two 19th-century lovers). Evan begins to feel ill at ease, and he dreams of sex with a pale-haired girl. His brunette girlfriend, Carrie, senses his emotional withdrawal and becomes more demanding. The story unwinds in two voices, that of the ghost, and the other the third-person account from Evan's perspective. The dead girl's voice starts out as lyrical, conveying her emotions and longing in poems almost like Haiku in their brevity and emotional trenchancy ("quiet/ night nestles into corners/ tall clock in the downstairs hall/ ticks the seconds/ I roam"). Later, the ghost, too, becomes demanding; and past and present converge to bring about a kind of healing for both the ghost and Evan. The third-person narrative works as an excellent foil, portraying Evan's kind nature with an even tone as opposed to the growing urgency of the dead girl's obsession. This is an evocative, often sexy book, demonstrating Jenkins's (Breaking Boxes) skill and imagination. Ages 14-up. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Children's Literature
This original and captivating novel combines poetry and prose to bring out the voices of a murdered sixteen-year-old girl from the late nineteenth century and a contemporary seventeen-year-old boy who moves into the house where the girl once lived and died. The ghost of Cora Royce tells the story of her childhood, her love affair, and her murder in words and lines which float across the pages of her sections in seemingly random but always intriguing patterns. Evan Calhoun's story is told in close-up third person prose as he, his mother, and his five-year-old sister Libby move into the house after his parents divorce. Evan's mother loves owning the huge old house, but Evan resents the move and worries about his little sister's isolation in a partly commercial neighborhood with no other children nearby. The stories begin to come together as Cora invades Evan's dreams. His real life girlfriend, Carrie, starts to seem less appealing than the blond girl he dreams of, and their relationship slowly deteriorates. Cora fell in love with a young man who lived with her family after getting in trouble at home. The two enjoyed sex with each other, but when she talks of marriage he tells her it is impossible. Evan's sexual relationship with Carrie ends when he is no longer willing to tell her that he loves her. On the last day of Evan and Carrie's relationship, with his mother out of the house, Evan holds his hand over Carrie's mouth when he thinks he hears Libby coming, just as Robert held his hand over Cora's mouth in the same room when he thought he heard someone in the hall. But though Robert smothered Cora, Evan releases Carrie when he realizes that Libby's in trouble. When Cora's ghost sees Evancomforting Libby and Carrie abandoning him, she realizes she has confused Evan with Robert and her spirit is finally able to leave the house. 2006, HarperCollins Children's Books, Ages 12 up.
—Judy DaPolito
More Reviews (4) Fewer Reviews
KLIATT
Filled with the heat of awakening sexuality, Jenkins' story crosses decades and genres as memory and reality meet each other in a dance shrouded in tragedy. The book begins with a wispy poem spread delicately across the white space of the first 11 pages. Two pages of narrative set the scene. Evan, his divorced mother, and his five-year-old sister Libby have just moved into a house more than 100 years old, and Evan isn't happy about it. Fifteen more pages of poetry, another voice from another time, intimate that the speaker has been there a long time and resents the imposition of the new inhabitants. The story continues to unfold in this waltz between the past and present, while parallel plots reveal themselves: first love, secret intimacy, fear and regret. This is, indeed, a ghost story, where both characters are haunted by the past and can only be freed from it by understanding how love and passion are not the same thing and that sometimes emotions spiral out of control. Jenkins' poetry is carefully crafted, at first flowing across the pages in wisps of thought, and then building in length and intensity as the past is revealed through the present. KLIATT Codes: JS--Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2006, HarperCollins, 243p., Ages 12 to 18.
—Michele Winship
VOYA
A seventeen-year-old boy moves into a dilapidated, historic house with his mother, starting over after a marital break up. Evan is a typical, often sullen teen with a girlfriend and undisguised disdain for his family and the house. They are all unaware that they have moved into a home with a curious spirit. Cora, a young lady who died in the home more than one hundred years ago, expresses her impressions of the new activity within the house intermittently through the novel's pages that set her words in a poetic form similar to that of e. e. cummings. She is confused about who these people are and why she is there. Her initial contacts are through Evan's dreams, most of them sexual. She grows obsessive about him when she realizes that he is not her boyfriend. A discovered box of news clippings, photos, and old letters sheds some light on Cora's identity and fate. As time goes by, she becomes more daring and angry that Evan has a real-life girlfriend. The tale draws to a climax as Cora attempts to repeat her tragic history. The book is not spooky, and the supernatural element is presented more in a romantic vein. The characters are well developed and are given realistic dialogue. The book can be finished in one sitting and might be suitable for older reluctant readers. Others should appreciate the artistry of the spirit's poetic musings, an echo from a more literate time revealed through her words. All in all, an attention-getting premise is presented with skillful writing. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2006, HarperCollins, 256p., and PLBAges 12 to 18.
—Kevin Beach
School Library Journal
Gr 9 Up-Evan, 17, doesn't think much of his creaky, fixer-upper new home. His mom seems to be spending more time on it than she does at work or with his five-year-old sister. In addition to the three of them, the rickety house is inhabited by the ghost of Cora, a teen who lived there nearly 100 years earlier, and whose effervescent, whispery poetry makes up much of the novel's text. Most of her thoughts are about Evan, how beautiful he is and how much he reminds her of a past lover. Her words are hauntingly erotic as she admires him from a distance, in his bedroom, in the bathroom while he showers. He is intrigued by her story, especially when he examines a box of her family's files and photographs found hidden in the walls of the house. She begins to appear in his dreams, causing him to question whether he truly loves his girlfriend, Carrie, with whom he's had an intimate relationship for over a year. Jenkins's novel is subtly eerie-a razor-sharp plot enfolded in a bed of feathery down, and a coming-of-age story about two teenagers-one dead, one alive-who learn that the lines between love and sex are much more blurred than they could have ever imagined.-Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Two interwoven stories, one in poetry, one in prose, and two teens, one a modern boy, the other a ghost, interact in this deftly crafted outing. Evan has moved into an old Victorian home with his mother and sister, and is happy in his relationship with his girlfriend Carrie. Soon, though, he begins having vivid sexual dreams about Cora. Cora, unaware of her own death, confuses Evan with the boy she loved at the end of her life. As Evan loses control over his relationship with Carrie, the reader learns the circumstances of Cora's death and watches as history appears to be repeating itself. Jenkins plants clues and builds suspense while exploring many of the difficulties involved in adolescent sexual relationships. The result is intriguing and certainly haunting. A winner. (Fiction. YA)

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780061964558
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 8/25/2009
  • Sold by: HARPERCOLLINS
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 256
  • Sales rank: 384,022
  • Age range: 14 years
  • File size: 261 KB

Meet the Author

A. M. Jenkins is the award-winning author of Damage, Beating heart: A Ghost Story, and the Printz Honor Book Repossessed, and lives in Benbrook, Texas, with three sons, two cats, and two dogs. Jenkins received the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship for night road.

Read an Excerpt

Beating Heart

A Ghost Story
By A. Jenkins

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 A. Jenkins
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060546077

Chapter One


That night, Evan has strange, choppy dreams that come in flashes. He dreams of sex, which wouldn't be unusual except that these dreams have a detailed, familiar feel to them, as if his mind is playing back a memory rather than making up something new.

He also realizes, when he wakes, that he never saw the girl's face. What he mostly remembers is her fine, pale hair. In the beginning it fell in a long braid over her bare shoulder. Later he saw it loose when she was under him and her hands reached up to clutch his arms and shoulders. Unbound, he remembers, it was soft against his nose and lips.

He comes downstairs in the morning to find his mother at the table in the breakfast nook, which is off the kitchen. The dining room itself is large, empty of furniture, and rather dark. Mom has finished eating breakfast and is drinking coffee. She looks relaxed and pleased with life in general. She has the house of her dreams, the job of her dreams, and happily she is unaware that her son has been having dream-sex with a hot young blonde all night.

"Good morning," she says.

"Morning," says Evan.

"Doughnut?"

"No, thanks." He gets some milk out of the refrigerator, and a glass. He pours the milk, then starts drinking it the way he always does, in one long series of gulps.

His mother takes a sip of coffee. "You look tired," she tells him.

"I had a lot of dreams."

"About what?"

"I don't remember." He does remember; he just has no intention of discussing this with her.

It's summer, but Mom keeps both hands wrapped around the cup. She always does that, as if she enjoys the warmth. "You should keep a dream diary," she advises.

"Yeah, I should," Evan agrees, but he doesn't mean it.

Mom sips her coffee again, then sets the cup down with a careful clunk. "I'll pick you up a journal, if you want. I'm about to get out and go sign Libby up for swim lessons."

"About time," Evan says without thinking. Immediately he knows he shouldn't have said it. It occurs to him now that Mom has been busy getting the house ready, picking out paint colors, meeting with workmen, signing papers. Now that they're here, of course she'll have more time to do things for Libby.

Mom's hands are still on the cup, but she's intent on him now. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," he tells her, but then figures since it's halfway out, he might as well finish. "It's just that you moved her away from all her friends, and there's nobody for her to play with around here. And the Asshole never comes to see her."

Mom grips her cup a little tighter, and the look she gives Evan could nail him to the wall. "Don't call him that," she says in her put-your-foot-down voice. "He's your father." She starts to take another sip of coffee, but stops with the cup halfway in the air. "And you know something? You are not the parent here, Evan."

"Sorry," says Evan. He's not sorry, not really. And he adds to himself, as he walks off, but he really is an asshole.

Continues...

Excerpted from Beating Heart by A. Jenkins Copyright © 2006 by A. Jenkins. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3
( 4 )

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(1)

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Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 19 Customer Reviews

  • Posted March 13, 2012

    Ghostly Unappealing

    This story was a disappointment. More pages are used for poetry than actual story, while I enjoy good prose, and the poetry is not bad, it left me feeling cheated. Like I paid for a book and got a short story. The characters are cardboard, the MC is a teen boy that is about the most lame testoroneless teen on earth.
    I like the ghost but there just wasn't enough story there, it is a quick read, but then there isn't much to read.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 5, 2012

    Expected too much of this book

    Bought it at the store, seemed interesting. Still left many questions unanswered and seemed like it wasnt finished. I expected a ghost story, not a guy having hormone issues because of a ghist presence.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 23, 2010

    Pointless!

    I thought it was going to be more interesting and scary. It just ended up being pointless and boring!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 12, 2009

    Beating Heart

    Good overall book. Not one of my favorites, but I did like it. I re-read it a couple of times, but then put it down. Im not saying it isn't a good book, but it isn't an amazing book also. It is a good book to have around and re-read once in a while.

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  • Posted March 31, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    9781595141712 9780618995301 9780385735599

    Beating Heart.

    I felt like this book really was not interesting at all.
    For a ghost story it was not very scary at all.
    I feel like it didn't really have a point to it also.
    NOT one of my favorites.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted December 18, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    9780061284397 9780451219947 9780316160179 9781595141743 9780312360269

    It's Alright

    When i saw this book i thought it was going to be very interesting because it was said to be a good book to read if you liked the Twilight Saga. So when i bought the book i read it in two hours and when i was finished i was very confussed. Like it has a good story line and all but it moves between characters way to much. And how it ends just make you think, "What just happened?". Like i've read multiple books and i'm sorry to say that this was my least favorite out of all of them. Like i'm not going to recommend this book to any of my friends. So i say there are alot better books out there, so if you decide to read it then more power to ya but for the rest i say go and try another series, because this book isn't the best one out there, trust me!

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  • Posted October 26, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    Reviewed by Andie Z. for TeensReadToo.com

    When his mother forces him to move with her to a new house, Evan Calhoun doesn't expect much. Sure, he'll have to move all his stuff, but he'll still go to the same school and have the same friends.

    Little does he know that there's a spirit occupying his new room, a spirit who will mistake him for her dead lover and change his life forever.

    BEATING HEART was really interesting, and my favorite part was the way the story is told. The point of view alternates between Evan and the ghost, and the ghost speaks in beautiful verse fragments that definitely make the book worth reading.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 12, 2008

    It was alright but not great...

    i have to admit, there where parts in the book that i enjoy, but unfortunately there were also dissapointing parts. So if you want to read it then go ahead, but i dont believe you will like the book that much

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 23, 2007

    Beating Heart

    This book really kept my attetnion! I was surprized. When I first picked it up and started to read it I wasn't quite comfortable with the style of writing, but I quickly became glued to the story. It's a quick read, great if you have extra time in school. I finished in one day ^_^ I do Recommend it!!!!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 20, 2007

    a reviewer

    When his mother forces him to move with her to a new house, Evan Calhoun doesn¿t expect much. Sure, he¿ll have to move all his stuff, but he¿ll still go to the same school and have the same friends. Little does he know that there¿s a spirit occupying his new room, a spirit who will mistake him for her dead lover and change his life forever. BEATING HEART was really interesting, and my favorite part was the way the story is told. The point of view alternates between Evan and the ghost, and the ghost speaks in beautiful verse fragments that definitely make the book worth reading. **Reviewed by: Andie Z.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted October 15, 2007

    Beating Heart

    This book was very simple, very different, and very odd. The meaning I extracted from this book is sometimes you can't hold on, you can't change the way others feel... sometimes the only thing you can do is let go. I would recommend this to teenagers, it a good, easy, quick read.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 26, 2006

    really good...

    My librarian gave me this book to read to see if i would like it. And boy did I. I like the way the poetry intertwined with the story of the 17 year old boy. It was well written and I just floated rite through it!!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 5, 2006

    Beating Heart

    Seeking a new start in life, Evan's mother moves into a dilapidated house with him and his kid sister, Libby. As the trio begins to make themselves felt, a presence starts to awaken, taking notice of Evan in particular. Once upon a time, Cora lived in this house, but died very young. She begins to believe that Evan is her long lost love, and her feelings begin to intrude on his life, changing his perceptions to a degree, and confusing the boy. Both ghost and youth have something to learn from each other in this odd little book. Cora's thoughts are rambling as she observes Evan's teen angst. This is not a Ghost and Mrs. Muir in reverse. There is no actual conversation between the ghost and human, the novel simply records how their awareness of each other changes the two. The ending is uplifting, but it takes a while to get there.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 19, 2011

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    Posted January 11, 2010

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    Posted December 14, 2009

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    Posted February 10, 2010

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 27, 2010

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 23, 2009

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    Posted January 2, 2011

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