In this moving love story, three friends find out what it really means to save someone.“A heart-stopping, heart-wrenching, and heartwarming story that kept me reading well into the night.”—Clare Pooley, New York Times bestselling author of The Authenticity ProjectKerry Smith is going to save lives—and so is her best friend, Tim Palmer. After years of working toward medical school, they are about … years of working toward medical school, they are about to take their entrance exams. But on the eve of the new millennium, a classmate goes into cardiac arrest, changing everything.
For nearly eighteen minutes, rising soccer star Joel Greenaway is dead. For nearly eighteen minutes, Kerry performs CPR on her longtime crush. And for nearly eighteen minutes, Tim is too shocked to help. Though they don’t yet know it, those eighteen minutes will change the next eighteen years of their lives.
Because, as it turns out, saving a life doesn’t always guarantee a happy ending.
With his soccer career cut short, Joel lashes out and breaks Kerry’s heart by ending their burgeoning relationship with a cruelty that derails her future, while Tim struggles to reconcile his dream of becoming a doctor with the reality of failing to act. As each struggles to move on from the events of that fateful New Year’s Eve, their lives can’t seem to stop colliding year after year. Ensnared by their shared histories and her big heart, Kerry soon finds herself picking up the pieces after both broken men. But when Kerry is the one who needs saving, will anyone be there for her?
As Kerry, Tim, and Joel discover what it means to love, to forgive, and to find your calling, How to Save a Life shows us that there is more than one way to save a life—and more than one path to finding meaning in your own.
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I really wanted to like this book, but I could not relate to the characters. They were irritating and their personalities made me want to bop them on the head. They were selfish and never managed to really grow up, mature, and make a positive difference in their lives. The writing style is good and the premise of the book was promising. I just expected a different story than what I read.
Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
Rather maudlin but entertaining. I felt like the characters kept making the same mistakes over and over again just at different points of their lives.
This is an interesting medical story of about survival, challenge, loss, grief, friendship and love.
Kerry and her friend Tim are finally accepted into medical school and it is not an easy journey. They save the life of their friend at eighteen who has literally “dropped dead”on New Years Eve 2020!
However was this a good thing? Time will tell!
Joel was the “big man” in town and has a wonderful future.
I enjoyed the writing of this novel though I do feel that it was a bit scattered at times.
It definitely for the most part held my interest and as a medical person myself, I enjoyed being with Kerry, Tim and Joel.
How to Save a life by Eva Carter a heartfelt four-star read. This was lucky I gave it four-stars, if the story wasn’t as strong it would haven’t have gotten close. It took me so long to get into it, not because of the story as that was good if not so troubling at times but because of the characters. I am sure many people will adore this story; I did at times.
I received an ARC from Random House Publishing Books- Ballantine Books through NetGalley for an honest review. Kerry Smith, Tim Palmer, and Joel Greenaway are classmates and in their final year of school. Kerry and Tim have been working toward medical school their whole lives. But on the eve of the millennium Joel collapses on the field as they wait for the new year. He has gone into cardiac arrest and Kerry begins CPR but Tim is unable to move. When the ambulance arrives, they take over the CPR and congratulate Tim on doing a fine job and he takes the credit.
Joel survives and he has always believed he would be a soccer star and had already known where he was going after graduation. Kerry and Joel fell in love and when he discovers he can no longer play, his life spirals out of control. Kerry is there for him and he deliberately hurts her and she fails her doctor’s exam. When I started reading the book I thought it was going to be just Joel’s life that was saved but as I read the book, there were many lives saved.
I always thought saving a life was a wonderful thing and never thought about what happened afterward. This book was an eye-opener. It also brought out the best of me and the worst of me because sometimes I was so furious at Tim and Joel. There were times I just cried because the reality of having a second chance at life isn’t always appreciated and sometimes can be so destructive. Then the realization this could be anyone and I don’t think a lot of people think of this side of what can happen. I am thankful that Eva Carter wrote this story because it was an eye-opener and it had the ups and downs, the failures and disappointments, and how each one dealt with them.
You should definitely put this on your To Be Read books in 2021. It took me places I never would have imagined.