Noteworthy Passages: Heart with Joy

Heart with Joy by Steve Cushman
Publisher: Blair, John F. Publisher
Pub. Date: September 28th, 2010
Pages: 182
Age Level: 14+

Synopsis via Goodreads
In Heart With Joy, fifteen-year-old Julian Hale’s life is turned upside down when his mother suddenly moves from North Carolina to Venice, Florida under the pretense of running her parents’ motel and finishing the novel she has been working on for years. While Julian has always been closer to his mother and wants to go with her, she tells him he has to stay with his father until the end of the school year.

Six weeks after his mother leaves, Julian’s father decides to run a marathon. This surprises Julian because he has never seen his father exercise, but once he agrees to help him train the two develop the sort of close relationship they’ve never had before. Also, with the help of an elderly neighbor, Julian learns that the most important thing in life is to follow your heart. And Julian’s heart leads him to a passion for cooking and a young cashier at the local grocery store. By the end of the novel, Julian is forced to choose between staying with his father and going to live with his mother.

Heart With Joy is an uplifting coming of age novel about cooking and bird watching, about writing and pottery, and about falling in love and the sacrifices we all make. But ultimately, it’s about the importance of following your heart and trusting that it will take you where you need to go.

Noteworthy Passages

Julian; pg. 21
When I turned the corner, a black dog charged at me. I flinched. At the edge of the yard the dog stopped, let out a squeal. It was Sam, the Sanborn's shiny black lab. The Sanborns lived two doors down from Dennis. They had one of those invisible fences that shocked the dog if it tried to step out of the yard. Even though Sam had charged me and stopped a hundred times before, it still seemed possible for a moment that this would be the time he would break through and attack me.

Julian; pg. 71
I told her my name, that I went to Grimsley, but Dennis and I had been friends for years. I felt silly standing there, making small talk. She was nice enough, and friendly, but I felt so uncomfortable, as if what I said was being magnified throughout the house. I just wasn't good with small talk, never had been. It always felt like I was pretending, saying what I was supposed to say, like an actor on a TV show, for that particular situation. I guess that's a big part of why I liked hanging out with my mother and Old Lady Peters--I didn't have to pretend to be someone I wasn't.

Tia, Julian, & Julian's dad; pg. 95
"What are you cooking this week? Mom says you should cook at least one new recipe a week. Spend the other six days mastering old recipes. By the end of the year you have fifty new ones."
"Sauteed shrimp."
She laughed. "I saw that episode on Monday."
After my father paid her, she wrote her number on the bottom of our receipt. This time my father tore it off and gave it to me right in front of her.
"No excuses this time," she said.
As we loaded the groceries into his truck, Dad said, "She is persistent. And you both cook. "
"Think of the tension after we're married. The two of us fighting for kitchen time. The kids neglected."
You're plumb crazy, Julian."

Julian; pg. 121-122
I thought about the discussion I'd had with Dad. How he might need a place to work if he was going to start working on pottery again. I remembered him saying the world didn't need more potters. But I didn't buy that and didn't think he did either. The world needed potters like it needed novelists, like my mother, and people to write cartoons and stand-up comics and old ladies to sit out in their backyards, watching birds. In my opinion, the world needed more people doing what filled their heart with joy instead of some job that buys them a fancy car or expensive house.

Julian, Tia, and Tia's mom; pg. 179
"Your mother told me not to touch you," I said.
"My mother is crazy."
We kissed some more. The telephone rang and Mrs. Brogan's voice filled the room, on the answering machine. "Tia, Julian, what are you two doing? Knock off the hanky-panky. Don't make me set up cameras in that house."
We laughed and hugged and she rested her head on my chest, both of us hot and tired, smelling of food, so much food, this life in the kitchen.

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I absolutely loved Heart with Joy and I had no trouble picking out Noteworthy Passages for this one. The ones I picked range from funny to thoughtful. I found that I could particularly relate to the second one as far as my opinion of small talk. This really is a great book and more people should know about it. If you like, you can read my Review.

Hope you all enjoyed the passages and feel free to comment with your thoughts on them. Thanks for stopping by. :D










PLEASE NOTE: This is a feature hosted here at my blog in which I present you with selected passages or quotes that I deem Noteworthy from a book I've just reviewed. My hopes are of course, that these passages will make you want to pick the book up and read it. This feature was started and created by me in January in hopes of making my blog more unique. That being said, I would like to kindly request that you do not use this feature as it was intended to be for my blog only and is not a meme. If you see some one else using it, please know it is without my permission. Thank you.