Content report card
A Darkly Beating Heart parent’s guide: what’s inside
Violence
Sexual content
LGBTQ+ themes
Substance use
What it offers
A note for parents
This YA time-travel thriller deals seriously with self-harm, mental illness, and dark emotional themes, making it best suited for older teens capable of handling those subjects maturely. The narrative alternates between present-day Seattle and 19th-century Japan, exploring how confronting painful pasts can lead to healing. While violence and profanity are present, they are not graphic; the real weight of the book lies in its psychological and emotional complexity rather than action.
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From the publisher
A troubled girl confronts her personal demons in this time-travel thriller alternating between present day and 19th century Japan. No one knows how to handle Reiko. She is full of hatred; all she can think about is how to best hurt herself and those people closest to her. After a failed suicide attempt at her home in S... A troubled girl confronts her personal demons in this time-travel thriller alternating between present day and 19th century Japan. No one knows how to handle Reiko. She is full of hatred; all she can think about is how to best hurt herself and those people closest to her. After a failed suicide attempt at her home in Seattle, Reiko's parents send her to spend the summer with family in Japan, hoping she will learn to control her emotions. But while visiting Kuramagi, a historic village preserved to reflect the nineteenth-century Edo period, Reiko finds herself slipping backward in time into the nineteenth-century life of Miyu, a young woman even more vengeful than Reiko herself. Reiko loves escaping into Miyu's life . . . until she discovers Kuramagi's dark secret and must face down Miyu's demons as well as her own.
Shelved under
- Young Adult Fiction
- Japan, fiction
- Children's fiction
- Time travel, fiction
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ISBN 9781626720459 · Macmillan + ORM