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Nothing Hurts But My Heart
Lisa Conklin is sure that this is a nightmare. An important gymnastics meet is only a few weeks away, and now there is something wrong with her back. The doctors are saying it's scoliosis and that Lisa might have to give up competing. But nothing hurts, Lisa tells herself.
109 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 13, 2011
Classic bait and switch: an author wants to write a book about a certain subject (X), but realizes that few people will buy a book about X, so s/he pretends the book is about a much more popular subject, Y.
Nothing Hurts But My Heart is a book about scoliosis, but it's pretending to be a book about gymnastics. As a book about scoliosis, it's servicable enough: author insert Lisa is a 13-year-old diagnosed with scoliosis, who has to wear a back brace, but learns that it doesn't have to ruin her life. But seriously, who wants to read a book about scoliosis?!? It's no exaggeration to say that 60% of the action of this book takes place in doctors' offices. Grooooan.
Written in the 80s, it was clearly decided that My Heart could be flogged to Mary Lou Retton fans if the book also played up the fact that Lisa is a gymnast. Unfortunately, there's absolutely no effort put into making the gymnastics believable, much less compelling. In the action, Lisa, an ostensible Olympic contender, learns to do a backwards walkover. This is the skill that Lisa and her coach thinks will wow those Olympic judges. For non-gymnastics fans reading this review, I'll just go ahead and link to a 7-year-old doing a backwards walkover. This is not complex gymnastics. By contrast, this is the reigning world champion on balance beam. [/gymnastics nerd]
There's also some cursory teenage friendship/romance stuff thrown in, which... ehh. It's probably close to the same quality as the Sweet Valley Twins books I read as a tween. It almost seems unfair to judge Linda Barr on the same scale as, say, The Hunger Games. But, golly, aren't you glad we're not stuck in the 80s?
If you're looking for a good book about gymnastics, this is not it. Hell, if you're looking for a good book about scoliosis, this also isn't it. (Surely there's more angst to be wrung from this subject? Surely!) The biggest compliment I can give Nothing Hurts But My Heart is that it was inoffensively bad.
Nothing Hurts But My Heart is a book about scoliosis, but it's pretending to be a book about gymnastics. As a book about scoliosis, it's servicable enough: author insert Lisa is a 13-year-old diagnosed with scoliosis, who has to wear a back brace, but learns that it doesn't have to ruin her life. But seriously, who wants to read a book about scoliosis?!? It's no exaggeration to say that 60% of the action of this book takes place in doctors' offices. Grooooan.
Written in the 80s, it was clearly decided that My Heart could be flogged to Mary Lou Retton fans if the book also played up the fact that Lisa is a gymnast. Unfortunately, there's absolutely no effort put into making the gymnastics believable, much less compelling. In the action, Lisa, an ostensible Olympic contender, learns to do a backwards walkover. This is the skill that Lisa and her coach thinks will wow those Olympic judges. For non-gymnastics fans reading this review, I'll just go ahead and link to a 7-year-old doing a backwards walkover. This is not complex gymnastics. By contrast, this is the reigning world champion on balance beam. [/gymnastics nerd]
There's also some cursory teenage friendship/romance stuff thrown in, which... ehh. It's probably close to the same quality as the Sweet Valley Twins books I read as a tween. It almost seems unfair to judge Linda Barr on the same scale as, say, The Hunger Games. But, golly, aren't you glad we're not stuck in the 80s?
If you're looking for a good book about gymnastics, this is not it. Hell, if you're looking for a good book about scoliosis, this also isn't it. (Surely there's more angst to be wrung from this subject? Surely!) The biggest compliment I can give Nothing Hurts But My Heart is that it was inoffensively bad.
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December 30, 2020(That 3 is pretty generous, though, let's be honest.)
Oddly enough, this one was actually better than the last one. The writing was still not amazing. It was third person, but it switched to first person "thoughts" too much, which was jarring. The language is pretty dated and I imagine the subject matter is, too. They've probably made a lot of advances in treatments in the 20-28 years since this was published. Read the rest on my blog.
Oddly enough, this one was actually better than the last one. The writing was still not amazing. It was third person, but it switched to first person "thoughts" too much, which was jarring. The language is pretty dated and I imagine the subject matter is, too. They've probably made a lot of advances in treatments in the 20-28 years since this was published. Read the rest on my blog.
October 20, 2009
Loved this book as a kid. Hardly remember a single detail beyond the cover blurb, but I loved, loved, loved it.
Didn't even remember the girl's name was Lisa. Funny.
Didn't even remember the girl's name was Lisa. Funny.
June 7, 2017
I remember reading this book and loving it! Then I lent it to my teacher or somebody (because her son had scoliosis) and she never gave it back!
May 6, 2011
Read it once, maybe twice, when I was younger.
October 27, 2012
I lov this book :) Its my favorite book but I wish they made more books tht added on to this one :/ but I rate it *****
April 17, 2016
I read this book as a young teen and remember loving it.
June 27, 2015
I really liked it even if it's written for children.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews