The Anatomical Shape of a Heart by Jenn Bennett
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Beatrix Adams knows exactly how she’s spending the summer before her senior year. Determined to follow in Da Vinci’s footsteps, she’s ready to tackle the one thing that will give her an advantage in a museum-sponsored scholarship contest: drawing actual cadavers. But when she tries to sneak her way into the hospital’s Willed Body program and misses the last metro train home, she meets a boy who turns her summer plans upside down.
Jack is charming, wildly attractive, and possibly one of San Francisco’s most notorious graffiti artists. On midnight buses and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who Jack really is—and tries to uncover what he’s hiding that leaves him so wounded. But will these secrets come back to haunt him? Or will the skeletons in her family’s closet tear them apart?
What, exactly, is the anatomical shape of a heart? I can tell you. It’s a bloodied splat on the floor, with gory little pieces of bodily tissue everywhere because that’s what it looks like after I’ve stomped on the figurative heart within this book for 10 minutes after having read it.
Do you like manie pixie dream girls? For those who don’t know what those are, here’s a good definition taken from Wikipedia.
“that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”
Yeah. And they’re bloody fucking annoying because they flit through life seeing it through rose-tinted glasses, filled to the brim with bliss and joy and seeing magic in everything. Think every single Zoe Deschanel character ever.
Thusly, it might not surprise those who know me that I want to commit bloody murder on those magical manic pixie dream girls. And joy of joys! Hurrah! There’s one in this book.
He didn’t ask me why I was carrying artwork around a medical campus. He just squinted thoughtfully and said, “Hold on, let me guess. No still life or landscape. Your skeptical eyes say postmodern, but your boots say”—his gaze swept down my black skirt and the knee-high gray leather covering my calves—“savvy logo design.”
To be fair, it’s a manic pixie dream guy in this book. Does that make it any better? Fucking no.
This book is about a stupid artist. A different, special, unique *rolls eyes* girl…
Too weird for jocks, and not weird enough for hipsters, I was neither freak nor geek, and that left me stranded in no-man’s-land. I was fine being a misfit—really, I was, even when someone scribbled “Morticia Adams” on my locker with a Sharpie this winter.
*coughspecialsnowflakecough*…who falls in love with ahandsome brooding handsome rich handsome famous handsome Banksy-type artist
Could that someone be Jack? Was he an infamous street artist wanted for vandalizing?
…who happens to be barely out of his teens. Imagine the sort of artistic fame at that age! Incredible! Unbelievable! Seriously preposterous, like are you fucking kidding me?.
Did I forget to mention he’s handsome?
He was a walking figure study in beautiful lines and lean muscle, with miles of dark lashes, and cheekbones that looked strong enough to hold up his entire body.
Don’t worry, the main character will shove the fact that he’s handsome in your face until you can’t breathe for the scent of his cologne (sprayed onto his handsome ears). He’s got his image to maintain, brah.
A jacket bent over in front of me and picked up my portfolio. When the jacket stood back up, it grew arms and legs and a face that probably competed with Helen of Troy’s in the ship-launching department.
He was all retro and rockabilly and cool. If James Dean and David Beckham had a baby, it would be Jack. That jewel-thief outfit he’d been wearing that first night was a total criminal disguise.
Good lord. Jack is so annoying. He’s the epitome of hipster pretentiousness.
He tugged on the small black cord that hung from one side of the bracelet I’d noticed earlier. “Is that a religious thing?”
“Mala beads,” he said, offering me a closer look. The strand of irregular dark beads wound around his wrist three times. “Bodhi seeds. I use it to count a mantra. I twist each bead as I count, like this.”
He’s so Rebel-Without-A-Cause with his fucking pompadour.
“This is Ghost,” Jack said with unabashed pride.
“Ghost?”
“A 1958 Corvette.” He unlocked the passenger door, which was covered with dings and scratches in an otherwise mirror-shiny paint job. “She was stolen last fall and taken for a joyride, which is why she’s a little beat-up on the outside. I decided to keep her that way for now so she wouldn’t look so showy.”
Oh, and of course he’s so broody because he has a Sad Past.
Maybe Jack was traumatized. Some people can’t handle seeing blood after witnessing something shocking. Acute stress disorder, it’s called. Over time, it can develop into PTSD.”
And he’s just so perfect because despite the fact that every girl is after him and he’s ridiculously handsome…(view spoiler)Like, are you fucking kidding me?
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