Another delightful book from Stephanie Butland. I read & thoroughly enjoyed Lost for Words and The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae is equally engaging. I wasn't sure about the subject matter to begin with but Ailsa & her mum are compelling characters as is the journey their relationship takes.
I would definitely recommend this book & eagerly anticipate Ms Butland next book.

I loved this book - heart warming and uplifting. A real tonic. It gave a new perspective to being a heart transplant recipient and the struggles of living with your new heart. Her expectations of real life and her realisation that she needed to be an adult were interesting. I have a child with a chronic illness which prevents him from living a normal life meant that the book resonated with me even more.

Living a normal life can be hard but Alisha learnt that it was both going for it - making decisions and living with the consequences.

A book I will be recommending.

A book that contrives to be both a serious and empathetic story about Ailsa and her life-defining illness, but at the same time is an uplifting and humorous tale of her struggles as both a blue and a pink heart.

Ailsa has a rare heart defect that could have killed her at birth but through surgical intervention she makes it through her life and even takes a degree, but in her mid-twenties it begins to fail. during the latter part of this period she begins a blog about her life and struggles as someone with a life-defining illness.

The excerpts in the book of her blueheart blog are wonderful and show just how difficult it can be to live when every day could be your last.

It also tells us clearly how difficult it is to have a successful romance under these circumstances and how believing in this romance has issues.

I liked the introduction of the tango as an illustration of this belief in Ailsa's life and future development.

The curious heart of Ailsa Rae

This is my first book by Stephanie Butland but it will most certainly not be my last.

This story of Ailsa who at the age of 28 having recently received a donor heart, she discovers that leading a normal life isn’t as easy as she had imagined. Although she no longer struggles to breathe, her life now presents new challenges, daily medication, steroids, appointments and the awareness that she now possesses the heart of someone else.
A charming, heartwarming and amusing tale, I would highly recommend.

This book left me tingling in a way that only happens when I know I’ve just read something special.
The Curious Heart Of Ailsa Rae is a beautiful (I don’t want to say heartwarming, given the nature of the beast), wonderfully written, touching journey, which almost felt like a true story.
I’m predicting big things for this book - if the film rights haven’t been bought yet I think someone will snap them up very soon.
I’m trying very hard not to gush but it’s difficult because I really did enjoy it.
There’s something about Ailsa Rae that stuck with me long after the story finished but it’s more than that, I was invested in and cared about all the other characters too.
Having said that, it’s not just a great story, it’s raising awareness about the important issue of organ donation. Ailsa seems very aware that her new heart had a life before her. She gives it a name and thinks about the person it once belonged to and how they might have dealt with different situations. However, that was only one element, it felt like Stephanie took a 360 approach; looking at it not just from the recipient/donor but both families and also the people and families for whom time runs out. And she did all that without making it feel cumbersome, which deserves a round of applause in my opinion.  
Maybe it's helped by the way it's written, the mix of story and blog posts moves it along and I liked the way Ailsa turned to her readers for help at first (as a blogger, that part of it was very familiar). It stops it being too heavy. 
Add in a romance and some Shakespeare and it was job done for me. I urge you to give it a try.

With thanks to Zaffre (via NetGalley) for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I was looking forward to this as I enjoyed Lost for Words but this book just did nothing for me.

Ailsa receives a long awaited heart transplant and starts to live the life that she has always felt she should be living. She has a blog and puts her main decisions to vote on the blog, and falls in love along the way.

I just didn't get the voting on the blog. Make a decision for yourself woman, its not that hard. I also felt she was unnecessarily harsh on the love interest Seb. We all say things we regret later. Even her Mum felt that and she doesn't like relationships.

Just didn't do it for me.

This past week we had our "once every decade" deluge of snow. The country ground to a halt and I curled up in the warm with Ailsa Rae. There are some books that you really don't want to end and <em>The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae</em><strong></strong> definitely falls into that category.

Ailsa was born with a defective heart. Emergency surgery as a baby saved her life but she has always been fragile and weak with a distinctive touch of blue to her pale Scottish skin. Staying home as she grew weaker and weaker her blog was her only real connection with the outside world apart from her hospital visits. Under the watchful gaze of her mum, Hayley, Ailsa feels her life starting to ebb away.

An extraordinary visit from the transport co-ordinator brings a ray of hope. A heart. One that matches. One that will soon be hers.

Set in the lovely city of Edinburgh this is very much a coming of age story where the main character is twenty eight and is only just discovering what it is like to really live. Ailsa is one of those characters that you want as your best friend. Quirky and compassionate with a naivety that that just endears her to everyone. A unicorn friend for everyone.

As Ailsa tries to cope with her new life there are too many decisions for her to think about herself so she puts polls up on her Blueheart Blog asking her many followers to vote for what she should do. Often with dramatic consequences that threaten her relationship with her mother. This is a beautiful book that will make you laugh and cry - often at the same time! - and Ailsa is a heroine for a new generation. All hail Blueheart.

Supplied by Net Galley and Zaffre in exchange for an honest review.

UK Publication Date: Apr 19 2018. 416 pages.

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#CuriousHeart #NetGalley

I was really looking forward to this, having thoroughly enjoyed “Lost For Words” by this author. The story is of the eponymous Ailsa receiving a heart transplant and learning to live.

Things I liked: the author has clearly done her research on heart transplants, life expectancy, etc; the book has a clear message about organ donation, which I support; I enjoyed the R&J concept and the dancing; the inevitable tensions between mother and daughter following a seismic change in Ailsa’s status was well explored; it’s not all happily ever after (actually, I like happily ever after, but the author resisted the temptation to make everything perfect, which was good really!

Things I liked less: the colloquialisms reminded me of Glasgow, so it was difficult to reconcile the Edinburgh setting (probably just me); the way the book is put together means it loses flow (Is it a blog post, a set of emails, narration?); I’m not keen on Ailsa’s habit of asking her blog everything , though I’m glad she started making a few decisions of her own later.

In conclusion, I liked it but didn’t love it. I’m still going to read more from Stephanie Butland.

Thank you to Zaffre and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Beautiful, heart warming novel that is so well written that the characters become your friends. This is a book that you miss when it ends, so perfectly has the world of Ailsa entered your head as reality. When you have been dying for 28 years, living is a new experience. Recommended, read it before they make the film!

Loved this book. Not only does it raise serious issue like organ donation, but it gives you an idea of what life is like for those waiting for a tranplant and also what life is like afterwards.
Ailsa has had a life filled with illness, knowing that her only chance is a heart transplat. When she gets one and is out of hospital it is difficult to adjust to normal life. The nature of her relationships with people around her is also changing.
I liked how the book had chapters looking back to earlier in her life so you could see how much things have changed for her.

Stephane Butland has absolutely blown me away with this book. As a sufferer of a life long illness, #thecuriousheartofailsarae made me feel that she was real and I ws part of her story. I could empathise with so much of her story and wanted to help fight for her, defend her, hold her hand, guide her, and every other emotion I could think of.

I have cried, laughed and loved every moment of reading this book and am gutted that it has come to an end and would recommend every single person that reads this review do 2 things
1. Read this book
2. Sign up as an organ donor and make your wishes known to your family
Bravo Stephanie Butland, you are inspirational to target such an emotive topic in such a well written way!

I loved this book. Completely different to anything else I've read and wholly gripping.
Ailsa Rae has had a heart transplant, she is young and lived life as fully as possible for somebody whose health is precarious and who has had a life limiting condition since childhood. She has come to terms with the death of a very close friend and has had to accept that there are many things she cannot do. Her life is transformed by her transplant and at the same time she meets a man who she feels should be out of her league but clearly isn't.
The book is interspersed with blog posts where she surveys the opinions of her readers in order to make decisions. As a blogger myself I can understand the addiction of this and also, in Ailsa's case the opportunity to pass the responsibility for difficult decisions to others. Her relationships with friends and family is well and realistically dealt with.
As bonus for me, the book is set in Edinburgh.
An excellent read.

Pun intended when I say that this had a lot of heart! I've not read a story like this before and a couple of pages in, I wasn't sure if I was strong enough to read it all the way through. I'm glad I did!

Ailsa has lived her life wrapped in cotton wool and allowing others to tell her what to do, how to do it and when to do it. Then she undergo’s life changing surgery and gets a brand new heart. So now she can live her life her way. Make her own choices. Do her own thing. Right?
And therein lies the story. This is gentle and easy to read and it feels like a friend telling you a story about someone you both know.

This wasn't the easiest book to read. Delving deeply into the emotions of a post heart transplant girl, it took you to places that are unfamiliar, puzzling, and desperately saddening. Lennox played such a huge part in her life and now he has gone.
Her mother, her father, both intertwined with all the hugely emotive feelings that I imagine one suffers after such an operation
The relationship between Ailsa and her blog is interesting, and I kept wanting to nudge her away from its shackles.
I think this is such a well written book, but it did need concentration on the part of the reader to move from one place to another.
Thanks to NetGalley for a review copy.

Ailsa Rae is born again at 28 following a lifesaving heart transplant. But what kind of life should she lead when she is carrying a heart that is not yet her own, when she will have check-ups and medication for the rest of her life and when she realises that steroids have made her put on weight, something that never mattered when she didn't have much time. How can she complain when life has been more than fair, when people she has loved have died?

Unsure what to do with a future she didn't have, Ailsa uses her blog to make her decisions until she knows what her new heart really wants.

This book follows Ailsa's first year post-transplant: charting new territory with her mother, a handsome actor, learning to tango, finding her estranged father and what a future full of independence could be like.

It was a sweet and enjoyable story, but fragmented by multiple storytelling techniques - blog posts, emails, reflections and present tense. This made is challenging to be trapped by the story. Having also recently read 'Lost for Words', this novel just felt like a rehash of the same story but with the protagonist having to overcome a different problem from her past.

Thank you to Netgalley, Stephanie Butland and Bonnier Zaffre for my ARC of The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae. 

Summary

It's only been a few months since Ailsa found out that she wasn't going to die after all. Born with a heart condition which gave her 3 instead of 4 chambers in her heart, Ailsa's prognosis had gone from bad to worse, until finally she gets her heart transplant. But now, having been convinced she was going to die, Ailsa has to learn to live again. This novel is Ailsa's story of getting back on her feet and learning not only to live with her new heart but to love with it too.


Review

This is the second novel I've read by Stephanie Butland and she is fast becoming one of my favourites. Her characters are so raw and real you become truly engrossed in them. I love that chance to really fall into a novel and become the character and both Loveday from Lost For Words and Ailsa from The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae are those sorts of characters. Compassionate but oh so strong as they face the things that others think makes them weak. Well that's one thing they're not. Ailsa proves that in her determination to get a job, climb a mountain and even learn to tango. 

Having a blog myself I loved the addition of Ailsa's blog and how it carved out her life for her, while I understood her mothers protestations I also understood the need for her to allow other people to make choices for her and I think that was explored really well. Stephanie's novels are incredibly touching and inspiring. I am an organ donor already but I urge other people to sign up as well, you don't need them when you're gone but you could save somebody else's life.

Ailsa has a new heart, Apple. She got it just in time, when her old one was failing. So she was born again at 28, with a new heart and new rules (anti-rejection meds forever, learn how to live with Apple, what Apple is capable of…). Ailsa story is one of survival and new beginnings. She writes a blog where she polls her decisions with her readers (a few thousands) which is an activity that started way back before she got Apple, when almost nothing else was on the table. Ailsa story is full of pain, but also full of hope and lessons on how to live and what not to miss. She needs to learn how to be on her own, and stablish a relationship with Apple which is the reason of having, suddenly, 60 years extra to live.

I have never read anything by Stephanie Butland and I am very pleased to have started by this wonderful and thought-provoking story. I love Ailsa, she is so sweet and nice, so grateful and full of respect for the unknown person that helped her, so strong…her blog entries are full of humor and hope, they are a cry for help and an attempt to normalize her anything-but-normal life. You can actually feel the need to live in between her lines, the need to prove herself (who wants queuing just to feel alive?). Reading her life actually makes you revise yours a little bit. How many things you can do but actually you don´t do, just because? Well, having everything for granted makes you dismiss many opportunities, and sometimes only through the eyes of someone that is actually discovering life, you learn that there are a lot of things out there you might want to consider.

What word defines you the best? I think Torchbearer is a terrific word. Never actually thought of one of my own

My favorite part is the evolution of Ailsa and Seb relationship through the exchange of emails. So personal and so interesting to see how something wonderful as knowing someone can be done no matter what, any kind of contact works for two soulmates. I only felt that something else could be added when Ailsa and Sea sleep together for the first time...seeing the scar for the first time as he showed his to her felt missing in the story.

A truly unforgettable book and one I could not stop reading till the end.

I enjoyed this book although the subject is fairly serious ,as at the start,Alisa Rae,the main character has just had a heart transplant.
The story follows her as she recovers and learns that a 'normal 'life is not always what she might have expected.She has some hard lessons to learn,but in the end she takes control of her life in a strong and positive way,so it's ultimately an uplifting read.

I loved this heart warming story. It was sensitive and emotional but was also believable. I loved the way the story unfolded and I felt a connection with the characters. Highly recommended.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Stephanie Butland for the copy of this book. I agreed to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.