Amy Hatvany's Heart Like Mine Book Club

Amy Hatvany's Heart Like Mine is a complex tale of the lasting effects suppression of emotions can have on not only an individual, but also an extended family.  Through her writing, Hatvany methodically unfolds essential elements of the story to further peak the reader's interest and keep the pages turning.  Told from the perspectives of three characteristically different women, the reader is allowed to weave together these differing viewpoints in order to form the truth of the situation.
For the purposes of book club, Hatvany generously offers open-ended questions and topics for discussion at the end of the novel.  In addition, a section titled Enhance Your Book Club allows book clubs to delve deeper into the novel by experiencing it either through the rewriting of a scene or creating one's own recipe which has significance behind it much like the first recipe Grace and Ava attempted together.  To borrow from Heart Like Mine, book club members may want to channel Grace and Victor's first meeting by sharing a meal of "creamy lemon butter sauce . . . served over grilled chipotle-spiced halibut" (52) or the trials and tribulations of Ava's adolescence with a meal much like Whitney's consisting of "organic chicken slices, mixed greens, and some kind of cookie made with agave nectar" (29).  For dessert, though, a pumpkin cream cheese Bundt cake is a must in order to encourage conversation about Ava's mother, Kelli.

Amy Hatvany