My Heart is Hurting by S. E. Reed, is a contemporary young adult novel and was the 14th place finalist in BBNYA 2024.

About BBNYA

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists (16 in 2024) and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

My stop on the BBNYA blog tour to help celebrate the success of S. E. Reed takes the form of a book review:

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Title: My Heart is Hurting

Written by: S. E. Reed

Blurb

Jinny Buffett is lonely…

She’s never had the comfort of a white picket fence with a loving family. Her subsidized apartment in Hollywood Florida echoes with the void of her dead Daddy, and the nights drag long into twilight while her Mama works the block outside the Margaritaville resort.

It’s idealistic Ms. Fleming, who’s brave enough to come knocking first. She wants to see Jinny rise up and use her ace scores to escape the wheel of poverty, convincing Jinny to start a school book club, where she finds the friends and boyfriend she never knew she needed.

But when her Mama spirals out of control and threatens her entire existence, it’s Jinny’s Everglade ancestors who arrive in a mist of magic, bringing the swamp and hope with them.

Review

My Heart is Hurting is a compelling and fast-paced novel that immediately drew me in. The action starts from the very first page, and the book is well-written and well-edited, free from any distracting grammar or typo issues. The descriptions of the setting and supporting characters felt authentic and truly reflected the perspective of a young teenager.

One of the novel’s strengths is the engaging way it tells the story. The inclusion of different forms of communication, such as messages between friends, kept the pace lively and immersive. From the very start, we were inside Jinny’s head, experiencing her thoughts and emotions firsthand, which makes her a very vivid and relatable protagonist.

I found the chapter one heading particularly intriguing, immediately sparking my curiosity about what Jinny was being asked to do. I appreciated the question posed in the heading was clearly answered by the end of the chapter. While the plot initially seemed simple in that Jinny was asked by her teacher to start a club, it was engaging, with clear hints of the challenges ahead due to her circumstances and strong-willed personality. This set-up created a strong foundation for the story.

The introduction of mysterious spirit figures and Jinny’s dream added an intriguing supernatural element that kept me turning the pages. Jinny’s reactions and emotions felt authentic for her age, and I sympathized with her difficult family situation. However, by the halfway point, I found myself unsure whether her main goal was truly to communicate with her father, or if a deeper purpose would emerge. The idea of talking to her deceased father, which initially seemed important, faded into the background rather than remaining her clear driving force.

Jinny herself is a well-developed character, and her strong personality is instantly clear. The novel does an excellent job of showing how her family background has shaped her. She is both tough and vulnerable, making her a believable and emotionally engaging protagonist. Her struggles with accepting help felt particularly realistic, as I found myself both sympathizing with her and feeling frustrated in the same way an adult might when dealing with a headstrong teenager.

However, as the book progressed, the tone shifted quite dramatically. About three-quarters of the way through, the story took a much darker turn, which for me made it feel almost like a completely different book. While this unexpected change could be engaging for some readers, I found it a little jarring. Additionally, the ending required a significant amount of exposition to explain the twists, which left me feeling disconnected. Rather than allowing readers to piece things together through earlier clues, a lot of the explanation arrives all at once, which made the conclusion less satisfying.

While Jinny’s character remained strong throughout, her mother’s actions, especially moments like attempting to harm Jinny at the hospital, felt sudden and difficult to understand. At times, Jinny seemed to have little control over her circumstances, with events happening to her rather than her being the driving force behind the resolution.

I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning of My Heart is Hurting, particularly the way it establishes Jinny’s character and her struggles. However, the latter half of the book left me feeling frustrated at times, which may have been the author’s intention. The ending, in particular, left me with lingering questions, as I didn’t feel a true sense of closure, or safety for Jinny.

Overall, My Heart is Hurting is an engaging and well-crafted novel with a strong protagonist and a compelling premise. While the tonal shift and ending left me wanting more clarity, it remains a thought-provoking read that explores deep emotions and complex relationships.

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You can read more reviews of My Heart is Hurting by S. E. Reed at:

Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/6yyoV0s (Canada) https://a.co/d/26frbTP (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/5t9ma1H (UK)

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/152331826-my-heart-is-hurting

The Story Graph Link:

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/57cec67e-2070-4d7a-a789-ca8fcef4e11a

About the Author

S.E. Reed lives in the south and writes strange, haunting, real stories of people and places along old highways.

Winner of the 2024 Florida Book Awards and the 2024 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People.

Additionally, she’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won honorable mention twice in L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest.

You can find her on X @writingwithreed or visit her website www.writingwithreed.com.

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I would like to thank The Write Reads for inviting me to take part in this BBNYA finalist tour. Thank you.