Beating Heart Baby
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2.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From debut author Lio Min comes BEATING HEART BABY, a tender love letter to internet friendships, anime, and indie rock, perfect for fans of HEARTSTOPPER
When Santi arrives in Los Angeles, he hopes he can move past the loss of the childhood internet friend he’d known only as Memo. And in his new high school’s marching band, Santi gets a taste of the community he’s always longed for. Even the clashes with his section leader, Suwa, lead to Suwa opening up to Santi first as a friend, then something more. But when Suwa gets a shot at the rock star life he’s always dreamed of, the very thing that drew them to each other—a shared devotion to art—tests their budding relationship.
Over years, Santi and Suwa glide and soar, crash and fall, together and apart. This twinned tale about the transitions between boyhood and manhood, internet confidants and IRL friends, the face in the crowd and the star on the stage, stakes and succeeds in making the bold claim: that Santi and Suwa’s fantastic dreams are as essential as art and love and life itself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Min's debut is a luminous homage to music, art, and the power of found family. When 14-year-old Filipino Santiago Arboleda inadvertently causes his online best friend Memo's song to go viral, Memo seemingly disappears from the internet, subsequently breaking Santi's heart. Now 17, Santi has relocated to L.A. to join the Sunshowers, De Longpre High's award-winning marching band. Though he's swiftly absorbed into the rambunctious Sunshowers crowd, Santi is haunted by his past as he navigates a future filled with possibility upon meeting Japanese and Korean drum major Suwa Moon, a trans boy who finds Santi as annoying as Santi finds him enchanting. The narrative is split into two parts, mimicking sides of an album. Side A follows Santi's heart-on-his-sleeve earnestness as he tries to atone for his mistakes; Side B features reserved Suwa's stumbling efforts to carve his own path in the world. This achingly romantic novel features racially diverse and variously queer characters, each of whom is given ample space to develop. Min's personal-feeling prose epitomizes the current age, in which lifelong bonds are forged through computer screens and group chats, emphasizing connection in its myriad forms. Ages 14–up.
