{"id":38687,"date":"2022-09-22T23:17:18","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T03:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=38687"},"modified":"2022-09-22T23:17:37","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T03:17:37","slug":"review-of-everything-i-thought-i-knew-by-shannon-takaoka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=38687","title":{"rendered":"Review of Everything I Thought I Knew, by Shannon Takaoka"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Everything I Thought I Knew<\/em><\/p>\n

by Shannon Takaoka<\/p>\n

Candlewick Press, 2020. 308 pages.
\nReview written December 7, 2020, from a library book<\/p>\n

Everything I Thought I Knew<\/em> is the story of 17-year-old Chloe, six months after she got a heart transplant from an unknown donor. She\u2019s recently been set free by the doctor to live her life, though her parents are anxiously keeping tabs on her, and she\u2019ll be taking medication for life to keep her body from rejecting the new heart.<\/p>\n

Chloe\u2019s friends are spending the summer getting ready to go to college, but she has to go to summer school to finish the classes she missed the last semester of her senior year. And besides the nightly dreams about a terrible accident, she\u2019s finding herself drawn to new things and acting out of character.<\/p>\n

Without telling her parents, when she\u2019s supposed to be at the library, she starts taking surfing lessons from a teen trying to make a little money. And she makes a friend at summer school and finds out what teens who have no parental supervision can get up to.<\/p>\n

Chloe and Jane start doing a little research and discover internet theories about cellular memory, and stories of heart transplant patients who suddenly have skills their donor had and know people who were important to their donor.<\/p>\n

Could this explain some of Chloe\u2019s strange experiences?<\/p>\n

At this point in the book, I almost put it down. It seemed a little too predictable. And while I think cellular memory might be a thing on some level, my suspension of disbelief didn\u2019t extend to the detailed memories Chloe was experiencing.<\/p>\n

But it turns out the book was not predictable at all. There\u2019s a twist at the end I didn\u2019t see coming and did enjoy \u2013 though it also was a little too much for my own suspension of disbelief.<\/p>\n

But I did enjoy the way this tale is told. You feel Chloe\u2019s bewilderment and her pressure to make the most of her life after the gift of a heart. Although I didn\u2019t completely believe everything about this book, I did thoroughly enjoy it.<\/p>\n

candlewick.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

This review is only on the blog.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

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