Rise of the Hearts is one huge creepy and weird story. The story started off with a guy named Nate and he's a certified nerd who jas been bullied all through out his childhood. Nate has a sister, Kim, and a neglectful mother. With everything that he's been through, the hero has been accepting of his circumstances in life, be it with friendship especially his love life that's actually, NADA. ZILCH. ZERO. But that has been okay with him because he has his younger sister with him, his champion. But everything changes from boring to full tilt one day.


"I'm not sure what I’m jotting down, but I feel my hand moving. In the middle of a nod, I’ve drawn a pink heart on my paper. I sit in my seat , confused, trying to figure out where I even got a pink pen from."


From that day onwards, something slowly changes in his life. And he's left to deal with all of it because even Nate himself can't explain what's been happening.


Truth be told, I quite had a fun time reading this. I eventually conmected with the main character and I kind of symphatize him. But I was not, and I say I wasn't really keen on the first few chapters of this book. I understand that this is just a rough draft and everything else is yet to be edited and I'm really hoping for that. This book has quite a potential to make it because it's entertaining enough especially towards the final chapters that I am glad I finished this. Reading this was like watching a dumb movie. You know it's kind of stupid but hey, you're still enjoying yourself, so why quit? Hope you catch my drift.

Anyways, the content of the story was amazing but there were some scenes, especially on the first few chapters that was just not attention-grabbing. It would really spoil the story, the book itself, to it's potential readers. A little bit of retouch probably won't hurt.

Overall, a little on the side of weird and creepy, horror-ish as others have referred it, it's not a book for everyone who easily gets bored and iffed reading a main character being so naive and dumb-ish. But that's just the appeal of the character once you really get into the story. He's gullible but that's just because he's quite socially akward.

The ending though was not one that I expected. It's actually a swift turn of event that blindsided me, but it adds character to the story.

This was a DNF for me. I couldn't get past the clunky writing and juvenile humour. Did not even get to the horror part.

I was under the impression that this was a YA horror although it did not specifically say so, it just sounded like it from the description. After reading it I must say it is not suitable for a younger audience, and I am hard pressed to think of anyone it may be suitable for. It is childish, but it is not for children.
The description of the book sounded appealing, but this story starts off poorly and gets worse as it goes on. The "miraculous gift" does not occur until halfway through the book, and the ending is so abrupt that I assume there will be a sequel that I will not be sticking around for. The characters are not likable and the dialogue is weak and unnatural. I can not recommend this to anyone. As a side note to the author... the effect you are attempting to describe is accomplished with a sip of hot coffee, or alternating hot coffee with ice water. Cigarettes don't heat up your mouth, they just give you bad breath.

What an absurd and far-fetched story it was! I usually do not mind unrealistic story, but this was far beyond unrealistic. I was going to DNF it in the middle, but since it was a short book I decided to read the whole thing. Is this even a horror?! I did not feel so at all.

English is easy and you can fly through this book, but I felt the plot jumped here and there, and it did not sum up.

Rise of the Hearts
by Antoine Bonner (Goodreads Author)
M 50x66
barth gimball's review Mar 21, 2018 · edit
it was amazing

A delight from cover to cover. Fun, good pace, great characters and original.

Was unable to finish. I just could not get into it enough to hold my attention. I will try in the future again, but was slow and confusing and I finally just decided I was not going to be able to get into this book and read it.

Although the summary is alluring, it must have been written by an entirely different author because this book was a hot mess, and not in a good way, and then some. Everything happens in a tangled up, random, thrown together manner. Reading this thing was like trying to put together torn up scraps of a instruction manual that were missing huge chunks and pieces. Sure, you could read it, but it didn't really make sense. Why would someone find their mother dead and then go home and flirt with a psycho, homeless stripper that was waiting there? They wouldn't. Exactly my point. All in all the characters are too flimsily constructed to be relateable and interesting. The plot makes no sense because it jumps around too much without connecting anything, and then it ends. Just like that. With everything else still hanging around and not really happening or making sense. Probably a lot like this review.

Anyway, I wouldn't recommend this one. It needs some work by the author to get into a better form. Then, and only then, might this one be a bit more intriguing.

In kindness to the author, I'm not going to keep going. I'm on page 67 and if I roll my eyes any harder, they might pop out of my head. If I keep going, I'm going to be unpleasant in my review, and I've decided to spare the author.

We'll call it my good deed of the month.

Nathaniel and Kate are brother and sister in a dysfunctional family with a weird home environment. Overnight he seems to develop the ability to use weapons with deadly precision, quick reflexes and glowing red eyes.
This book had a juvenile feel to it and read like it was written for a younger age group so I can see why it was touted as suitable for teens and YA’s. I struggled to stay interested in the characters and the storyline. I also had trouble working out what the significance of the strange eyes on the girl in his dreams.
A few of the dream scenes/hallucinations seemed to have a bit more depth to them. If the author develops more as a writer, future releases should improve and worth another look.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Nathaniel is a loser. Anything that he does or says, looks stupid and ridiculous. He doesn't have any friends. The girls that he thinks look nice, hate him. The only one he really has is his younger sister. She believes in him. Then he finds himself receiving a special gift. With this gift everything he days or does is amazing. He has friends, and girls like him. The only thing he needs to worry about is what this special gift will cost him.
3 Stars

Nathaniel has led a pretty unremarkable life; unlucky in friends, unlucky in love and just plain unlucky in life. Between being bullied in high school and being used in collage it seems he will never be truly happy. Until he’s offered the chance to attract the girl of his dreams. He jumps at the chance before realizing that the consequences could be dire. Is this blessing really a curse?

Rise of Hearts held so much promise and the story line had great intent. However the writing was rushed, the dialog forced and the characters were impossible to relate with. The point of the story seemed to drag on for ages and never quite got there for me.

The writing jumped all over the place and left me wondering what the author was trying to achieve. There were moments of awkward sexual encounters that border sexual assault as well as a unbelievable suicide attempts. The authors veiled attempt at writing a thriller story very widely missed the mark.

I was offered a digital copy of Rise of Hearts in exchange for a fair review. These opinions are my own and no way influenced by the author, publisher, or anyone affiliated with this book.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. It took a while to get into this story. It dragged on for quite a bit, although it turned out to be a very good read. A lot of it was just so unbelievable. Nate is so gullible and maybe a bit thick. Good story, good characters. Didn’t like the ending.

*Read 50% but could not finish*
I don’t like giving bad reviews but it’s been a long time since I’ve read anything this bad. The writing and dialogue are both horrible, characterisation is poor and the plot is a mess. It felt like it was written by a hormonal fourteen-year-old boy.
Perhaps it got better in the second half, or perhaps I’m not the intended audience, but I just couldn’t keep going.

dear author: next time before you publish a book, please have other people read it. please, so they can tell you if it's realistic or not or just plausible in any sense of that word

edit: okay i think i owe the author an apology because idk what the fuck happened, but halfway through the book (say page 80, when nate revisited the strip club), the writing got 100% better. i felt sympathy for the guy, actual sympathy. it legit felt like i was reading an entirely different book.

see, i would have preferred the book to start at nearly that point. you could cut out 90% of the first 80 pages, keep the introductions but leave behind the non-stop forcefeeding of how terrible nate's life is, and i would actually like the book. at least, would give it 3 stars because the latter half still feels like it needs a beta reader or second rewrite to improve the characters, but it would have been sooooo much better.

i wouldn't have cared if a book was real short as long as it's quality. this book actually has potential, it is a very, VERY unpolished gem. not gonna lie, if the author rewrote this & cut down the forcefeeding of nate's terrible life, i would love to read it again because the horror scenes were actually done well. unfortunately, that was like 20% of the first 80 pages & the first 80 pages lost me as a reader.

What a curious book. Dubbed as a horror, but heavily infiltrated by farcical humour with coming of age older teenagers. It is narrated by Nathanial, the older brother with no friends that just starts classes in college. He immediately makes friends with 2 very unusual girls and their provocative and cult like friends. Green beyond belief, he is exploited by those he meets through them, handing money over fists for the hope of some sexual encounters. He has the opposite of the Midas touch.

There is a supernatural element with the intermittent presence of a young girl with pink heart shaped irises that invades his dreams and sometimes wakefulness, citing ‘Nobody is going to love you like I do’. And life becomes a whole lot more complicated from this point forward as he encounters more and more dilemmas.

It has an indie feel to the writing, albeit I am not sure what this book is trying to be. It inhabits an altered reality. It doesn’t have a strong structure and the story jumps along via loose plot lines. It isn’t a very long a read, which allows you to see it through to its odd denouement. It’s a bit weird, wacky and off the wall. So if you like farce and can suspend reality it will work for you. Given the ending I suspect a second instalment is being lined up too.

This is a NetGalley book.
I had a hard time getting into this one. The start of the book was her slow and seem to drag for me. Nothing interesting was happening. Nathaniel is the main character. He has a sister, Kim and his mom. They all live in the same home. Nathaniel is in college and is extremely gullible. He falls for any sob story a pretty girl tells him. Any "friend" he thinks he has just wants to use or manipulate him. His younger sister protected him from his high school bullies! He is the most naively trusting person. He had one person who he really liked, Treah, and he's pretty sure she felt the same, but he was to shy to find out before she moved away. Nathaniel keeps seeing eyes with pink hearts, he thinks he might be loosing his mind. He thinks maybe those pink hearts stop bad things from happening, he might be going crazy!
I think this book was well written. The story and concept were original. The characters were all quite different.
I think Nate was a bit to gullible to be believable. I would have liked to known more about Treah, like what she is. I didn't like the ending.
This book has it's good points and bass, but worth the read in my opinion.

This book really does not deserve a review. Enough time was wasted with the reading of this book that it feels wrong to throw more time away now.

This book was so poorly written it was offensive. The plot was terrible, if you could even say it had a plot. The characters were paper thin and nothing made sense.

I feel like this book was written by a thirteen year old with no writing experience. Everything that happens is just thrown together with no thought to reality. The main character finds his mom dead in a strip club, then comes home and starts flirting with the stripper that is waiting there. Sounds plausible!

Please, please, please, do not waste your time with this mess. Anything else you find would have to be a better read.

Rise of the Hearts was a nice, enjoyable, somewhat scary book! It had a quite unique storyline with twists and turns. I enjoyed it!

I voluntarily read and reviewed a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Nice quick, lightheartedness read. Something a bit different to my normal read which made it more interesting for me.