Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Your Heart Belongs to Me

Your Heart Belongs to Me
LaurieS avatar reviewed on + 504 more book reviews


At the beginning Ryan, a very well to do man, falls madly in love with Samantha, a woman nine years his junior. She appears to feel the same way and the relationship is going along swimmingly until one day he fears he's having a heart attack and visits the doctor. It turns out he has a heart ailment that may or may not have been caused by poison and begins to suspect his love of an unthinkable betrayal. Ugh, as if having a deadly heart condition wasn't enough of a worry!

Ryan's nosy search into Samantha's past gets him thinking about all sorts of conspiracies involving her mother, some death doctor and Samantha's deceased twin sister. This paranoia bit really maddened me. Instead of talking with Samantha, the love of his live, about any of this he decides to do it all on his own and keep it from her even after he's decided she's not a money grubbing murderess. At this point, I don't like this guy much at all. Koontz spends a huge amount of time describing this Ryan's tedious, spoiled lifestyle when he should have been developing him into a likable character.

Ryan ends up needing a heart transplant (hopefully, it'll improve his emotional handling of his lover!), gets one and the book then skips an entire year. Now he's estranged from Samantha and is being stalked by a young woman who claims his heart belongs to her. His paranoia sets in again and the rest of the book is spent with him chasing down this big plot about his new heart.

This book will not go down as my favorite Koontz novel. It mostly annoyed me, the character Ryan was such a spoiled, pampered, egotistic, opinionated priss (especially when it came to his own flawed parents) that it was hard to stomach at times. After reading the ending I figure Koontz did this to prove a point but honestly if I weren't listening to this as an audiobook I would've put it down and never picked it up again.