A Distant Heart

A Distant Heart by Sonali Dev     352 pages

Her name means “miracle” in Sanskrit, and to her parents, that’s exactly what Kimaya is. The first baby to survive after several miscarriages, Kimi grows up in a mansion at the top of Mumbai’s Pali Hill, surrounded by love and privilege. But at eleven years old, she develops a rare illness that requires her to be confined to a germ-free ivory tower in her home, with only the Arabian Sea churning outside her window for company. . . . Until one person dares venture into her world.

Tasked at fourteen-years-old with supporting his family, Rahul Savant shows up to wash Kimi’s windows, and an unlikely friendship develops across the plastic curtain of her isolation room. As years pass, Rahul becomes Kimi’s eyes to the outside world—and she becomes his inspiration to better himself by enrolling in the police force. But when a life-saving heart transplant offers the chance of a real future, both must face all that ties them together and keeps them apart.

In reality, I'd give this 2 1/2 stars. It was okay. As far as romances go, this was just barely one. For most of the book the two leads infuriatingly danced the "will they/won't they" while all the while being either oblivious or infuriatingly misunderstanding everything. 

So, the formatting of this book, with two chapters spent in the present, one from each of the main character perspectives, then two chapters set in the past, one each from the main character perspectives, is very tiring. It slows the advancement of the story way down. And the past seems almost no different from the present - it's just full of examples of how Kimi and Rahul continuously get angry/sad/hurt by each other's actions then make up because they're such! good! friends! Well, the present is more of the angry/sad/hurt brooding, with little to no talking about their feelings and a lot of internal monologues about how "this time, it's for real, I won't be in love with them anymore. I've drawn my line in the sand and I need to stop looking/touching/thinking about them." As a reader, you have to wade through all the "past" chapters to find out what it is "this time," that has them at odds with each other. The only reason why I wanted to finish this book was because I wanted to know what that reason was. It was as expected. Very cliched, to say the least about it.