Out of Heart follows Adam, a teenager whose grandfather suddenly dies. Upon his death, it is revealed that Adam's grandfather has donated his heart to William, a ,man who is lost and alone. This transplant needs to their lives colliding

One of the issues I had with this book was that William felt like he was written as a teenager when in fact he was a grown adult. It was a little bit confusing to read as I was picturing him one way which is why I thought he had a connection to Adam, but in actuality he was a lot older. It made less sense for him to latch on to Adam's family so much if he was an adult as well. We did see that his life was very lonely, but honestly it's a little bit strange that he essentially joined someone else's family just because he has a part of their grandfather.

I don't think the supporting cast were really fleshed out either and it was a shame as they could have added so much to the story. We don't really see much of Adam's family and his best friend has some views which are quite troubling, such as how he seems to find autism problematic and something to cover up or not draw much attention to.

I think if this book had been reworked slightly and possibly been a novel in verse it would have been much more impactful and a better read. It did have some poetic elements in it so I can see the potential in that. I am glad that it was centred on a transplant though as that is a topic which isn't addressed much in young adult fiction.

Always think stories about organ donations are interesting, but I just couldn’t really engage with this one and I didn’t really care for the story.

Out of Heart is a powerful story about the enduring ability of love and how death cannot weaken those feelings.

Adam is a bit of a loner kid. He doesn't let anyone in. His family live hand-to-mouth, his dad isn't in the picture anymore, his sister doesn’t speak and then his grandfather dies. This isn't a spoiler. It happens in the first chapters. However, when the recipient of Adam's grandfather's heart appears on their doorstop Adam's world is rocked.

I honestly loved Out of Heart. I read it in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down. It deals with uncomfortable matters with kindness and shows you the value of friendship and love.

Out of Heart by Irfan Masters is available now.

For more information regarding Hot Key Books (@HotKeyBooksYA) and (@HotKeyBooksTeen) please visit www.hotkeybooks.carrd.co.

This is a story about Adam and William (who is the recipient of Adam's grandad's heart), and tells the story oof finding your way through adversity. I really liked the concept and the representation, but the writing fell flat for me. I didn't know William was an old man until I saw it mentioned elsewhere, which goes to show that the characters could've been written a little better. Overall, a sad story about love and coming out of heart-ache, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I would've liked.

Unfortunately I didn't finish this book, as I couldn't get into it - nothing against the author or book, just not to my personal taste. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Out of Heart is a simply told story, about grief and family. When Adam's grandfather (referred to as Dadda) dies, he donates his heart. Still dealing with their loss, two weeks later a man turns up at the door. His name is William and Dadda's heart saved his life.

This book requires a bit of suspension of belief. A man walks in off the street and is accepted into a family for the sole reason that the youngest family member recognises something in him. Implying there is a connection via the heart. It is explained later how William knew where the heart came from, but it still has a sense of fairy tale to it.

William and Adam both start having dreams about Dadda and the heart. William is with the family briefly, and is a quiet unassuming man, but he is a catalyst for plenty of changes for the better. At first I though Farah was deaf but instead she had an accident leaving her unable to speak but still able to communicate.

I felt it was lacking emotionally and there were a lot of different threads so no issue was looked at in great detail. One of Adam's friends make a distasteful joke about people thinking he's on the autistic spectrum and they will think he's crazy. There's a lot about Adam, that makes you think maybe there is some learning difficulty left undiagnosed. His teachers think he's capable but he just doesn't do the work. He communicates better through his artwork and creates sort of poems from jumbled letters, helping him make sense of his thoughts.

It might be better read as a middle grade book, where more complex explorations aren't required. It touches a little on poverty and domestic abuse, and there's a very gentle romance which is a very small part. I can see younger, serious readers who prefer their fiction without action liking this. Adam is fifteen and they do say kids like to read upwards, so maybe 12-14 is a good age if the topics are OK for them.

Irfan cleverly introduces the Shah's as Muslims in a scene where Yasmin and Farah are shooed away from Dadda's funeral by elder men from the community. Women are not permitted. I liked Yasmin, she repeatedly stands up for herself and by the end you can tell she sees some of this "community" as fools. I don't think their religion is ever spelled out but it is implied. This also explains why Dadda's heart donation was such a shock.

Organ donation is a topic of much confusion in the Islamic faith and as a result there is a severe shortage of donors among certain ethnic groups. It is not condemned in the Koran but some believe it will leave person incomplete in the afterlife. Yet saving a life is the greatest gift and should be encouraged.

The book is also illustrated, with a dot-to-dot at the end (this is relevant) and is interspersed with facts and quotes about hearts.

I was really intrigued by Out of Heart by Irfan Master when I first heard about it. There have been a few YA books that deal with heart transplants, but for the most part, they are romances focusing on the grief of a girl losing her boyfriend, and slowly finding love again in the guy who now has his heart. With Out of Heart, however, it's the story of how a boy, Adam's grandfather dies and donates his heart, which goes to a man William, and how William affects Adam's family, and vice versa. It wasn't your usual YA heart transplant story, and so I was really interested, expecting an emotional read. But I finished it with mixed feelings, I'm sad to say.

Out of Heart is beautifully written. It's one of those quiet books I usually love, slowly unfolding it's story, leaving me immersed and relaxed. It deals with some tough subjects; Adam's father is no longer on the scene, due to beating his family; his sister, Farah, is unable to speak; his grandfather, Dadda, has apparently left behind some debt to loan sharks, and they're also dealing with their grief.

The problem I had with the book is not a huge deal happens. William, the man (who I originally thought was another teenager from the blurb, but is actually a grown man) who receives Dadda's heart kind of accidentally becomes a part of Adam's family when he visits one day. He just wanted to meet them.n This mad had died, and in doing so, saved William's life. The only problem is William doesn't have much of a life. No family, no friends, no job, no home. But when he meets the Shah family, he doesn't really leave. He does leave, he goes back to the hostel he stays at, but he comes back every day, and slowly becomes part of the family. Both Adam and his mum are a little wary of him at first, but Farah loves him, and slowly Adam and his Mum come round to him, too. He genuinely becomes part of their family. And that's so special to him, to be loved. There's never anything between him and Adam's mum, it's not a romance, he's just a family member. And there's something about William that heals the Shah family, too - though I couldn't say what it is. I think it's just that he's a good guy? The Shah family have been through so much, and it's like William's presence helps to heal those wounds.

But that's it, really. William now spends time at the Shah's family, and they spend time with him. That is the story. Of course, there are other, smaller elements; Adam's graffiti, his relationship with a girl he likes, how his dad tries to worm his way back in. But mainly, it's just about William and the Shah's, and it doesn't really seem to go anywhere, or have much point to it. And with the ending, I was left thinking why? What was the point? I mean, for the characters, I kind of get it, though I can't explain due to spoilers, but for me, as a reader, what was the point? There was no real plot that was kept moving. William joins the family, and that's it until the end. It was beautifully written, and I enjoyed that part of it, but I also feel like I wasted my time. I feel there isn't a huge amount to this book.

There was also a problematic part to the book where Adam's best friend Cans tells Adam he shouldn't be so quiet and randomly pull out his notebook - in which he is always drawing or jotting down wordplay to help him understand his thoughts - because people will think he's weird, that he's autistic. He's not. Cans also links being autistic with having mental health problems, when they're not the same. And Cans says they'll think he's "psycho", and he will be "admitted", implying those with mental illness get locked up. This is obviously not the case, and sure, Cans is 15, and those who are ignorant and have no experience of autism or mental health may say these things... but it was just unnecessary. Sure, Adam pulling out his notebook randomly to sketch or write down his thoughts is a little quirky, but nobody else questions it or brings it up, nobody else thinks about it like Cans does.. It's just what Adam does. It was ableist and really unnecessary.

So sadly Out of Heart isn't for me. But I enjoyed the writing enough to want to read Master's other book, A Beautiful Lie, at some point.

As soon as I started Out of Heart, I knew it was a book that would stay with me forever. I couldn't bring myself to put it down and read it in a couple of hours. The characters jumped off the page and it is beautifully written. There's a lot in there-loss, love, racism, domestic violence, friendship, poverty-all tackled with a deft hand. I think the physical book will be a thing of beauty; the illustrations are wonderful and accompany the story perfectly. Just tremendous.

Found it slightly unrealistic.. would you really invite a stranger into your home?
A good read for younger reader though i think.. 11-16

Out of Heart is about a contemporary British Asian extended family, with each member dealing with grief, anger and loss in their own way. The narration swaps from character to character, each with their own secrets and their own reasons for not communicating with the world. This means that, as a reader, you have to work harder to piece together what has happened and why the characters are struggling to speak. In many ways this works and gives the book a dreamlike quality, but at times I was left wanting more.

And I wanted to hear more. The book touches on domestic violence, depression, guilt, nationality, gangs, standing up to bullies and, above all, the healing power of creativity. Its celebration of art and writing – the pure power of creating something – is beautiful and kept me reading. I also enjoyed reading a BAME own voice writing about immigrant communities. I felt like a light was being shone on issues I care about from a different perspective. It has made me curious. It’s made me question what it would feel like to be those characters, to be in that community. It’s made me want to understand.

I just wish that light could have been a torch and not a candle.

You can get your copy here.

Source – review copy from publisher, Hot Key Books.

I really wanted this book to impress me, and I was optimistic for much of it, but I can't lie. This book was so disappointing for me. I never understood what was happening, whether anything was happening at all, or what the point of it was. This really was not my cup of tea.

When Adam's grandfather 'Dadda' dies, he and his family are shocked to discover that he donated his heart. They are even more shocked when Adam shows up at their house claiming to be the recipient of Dadda's heart. William is quickly welcomed into the family and finds a home with them. Meanwhile, Adam spends his days enveloped in his artwork. To be honest, that's basically it. I don't know how to describe the 'plot' of this novel, because I couldn't really pick one out for you. Things happened, once in a while, but they didn't really seem to serve a larger purpose, and for most of the book, I had no idea where it was going and what the characters were looking for. I appreciate that one aspect of many of the characters, or at least William and Adam, was that they are sort of drifting through life, but I would have liked to have had a clearer idea of at least their short term goals, their feelings, their wishes.
Perhaps this was made worse by the fact that the writing is quite poetic and symbolic. Adam spends a lot of time making short little poems with random pairs of words, and the way that the novel is told is almost a sort of stream of consciousness narrative. I found this odd, especially for a YA contemporary novel, but I was willing to give it a try. I have enjoyed stream of consciousness literature before, so I was actually quite excited. However, my issue with the way it was used in this novel was that I don't feel like any of the characters really stood their ground enough as individuals. The narrative would sometimes switch from one character to another, and by the end of the novel, I think most of the characters had been the focus of the narrative at some point, but the information we were given about them and the events happening were just a bit too wishy-washy and vague for me.

Vague seems to be the overall impression of this novel. I don't mind reading novels that experiment with symbolism and narrative, I'm used to them, but I do think that there has to be a balance. There was clearly symbolism in this novel, there was a lot of talk of hearts (understandably), but if Irfan Master was hoping that his novel would make his readers think about something in particular, it didn't achieve it with me. Even basic things missed me. For example, even now I'm not completely sure if Adam actually lives with his grandmother. I'm pretty sure she was mentioned at some point, but then she disappeared. There was another plot to do with Adam's father, his younger sister, and domestic abuse, but for such a heavy topic, it just wasn't explored at all.
This is one of the hardest reviews I've ever written, simply because I am completely lost for words over this novel. I read it, but I can't find any wider meaning to it. It was just a string of events, and the attempts at symbolism and imagery completely went over my head. Nothing was explored, none of the characters stood out to me, and the plot was barely identifiable.

Heart full, full heart, heart felt. A fascinating main character, Adam, and there's quite a lot going on under the surface of the book, like Adam himself.

This was quite slow to start and I wasn't too sure whether I was actually going to enjoy it - and then I was 30% in and suddenly incredibly invested and all the small things that I considered to be flawed didn't actually matter to me. This was beautifully written - a strange line between something beautifully poetic and wonderfully colloquial. Out of Heart is full of complicated characters, ones that are more than how they speak or how they look, and this book is a great snapshot of that complexity.

This was a good story, but the way it was written didn't click with me. It was too arty, with all the words suddenly appearing in the text. I think that's a big reason as to why I didn't get on with it. It was easier as I got on through the story and as I began to engage with the characters, but it didn't make that much of a difference.

I liked Adam as a character. I liked his drawing and the way he is with his sister. I also liked the graffiti and the way that Adam wanted to leave his mark on the world. How he wanted to show what was in his head to more people.

I still think it's a bit weird how the family treated William. I mean what kind of people just accept someone who shows up on their doorstep into their home like that? But I understood it more as it went on.

It would have been nice to connect more with this book, I think I would have really enjoyed it if I hadn't been so put off by the style.

Out of Heart was a story of loss, love and acceptance. The family dynamic of this story was lovely, and the friendship between Adam and William was something I kept wanting to read. I was invested in the plot, although at times it didn't fully hold my concentration, hence only a 4 star rating. However, I think it is an important book to read, and I especially loved that there was a POC narrator. I recommend this book highly.

This was a quick, easy read, and one I'd recommend to teens and adults alike.

Another reviewer said she felt as though there was something missing; a je ne sais quoi, and I'd agree with this. Frustratingly, I can't quite figure out what it is? Perhaps that I was left wanting to know more about William, particularly where he came from. I did appreciate his air of mystery though, and the lack of dissection of events; instead just allowing them to happen and flow naturally.

This book intrigued me from the start, for Adam's granddad has passed away leaving his heart as an organ donor.
Adam struggles with his feelings over his grandfather's passing but is strong for his mum, sister and extended family.
Then William lands on their doorstep, close to death and accepting of that fact, he feels connected to Adam and his family, which he is in a rather big way.
He has Adam's granddad's heart.
Him arriving causes friction before acceptance as well as Adam finally approaching his long term crush.

I really liked the fact that Adam relies on his drawing and graffiti as well as his sister also leaning on her sign language as she doesn't have anything right to say. William fits into the family and it shows how much we need each other.

The book tackles diversity, health and first love really well. It openly discusses feelings from all of these angles and how actions of the past can alter the future in such a huge way.
Thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!