Heart on a Chain by Cindy Bennett

THE BLURB:
17-year-old Kate has lived her whole life in abject poverty, with an alcoholic father and drug-addicted mother, who severely abuses Kate. At school, her second-hand clothing marks her as a target. Her refusal to stand up for herself makes her the recipient of her classmates taunts and bullying. That is, until Henry returns. 

Henry Jamison moved away six years earlier, just as he and Kate had begun an to develop feelings for one another. He returns to find the bright, funny, outgoing girl he had known now timidly hiding in corners, barely speaking to anyone around her, suspicious of even him. 
Kate can’t figure out what game Henry is playing with her - for surely it is a game. What else would the gorgeous, popular boy from her past want with her? 

The Review:

Just to be clear, this book is more of a 4.5 out of 5 stars to me.

So I've been looking for good and tear-jerking books like If I Stay or Flat-Out Love, and found this. I've read some sparkly reviews about it and so I gave it a read. And you know what I think? I think describing it as "a good book" is most-certainly an understatement. Heart on a Chain was completely engaging in a way that you somehow feel what the main character feels, and that you have this strong urge to protect her from those who torment her.

In this book, we meet Kate Mosley, a plain girl who strives to be invisible from her parents and peers mostly to avoid attention---because attention means a focus of physical/emotional abuse and mortification for her---ever since she was nine. That is, until Henry Jamison came back. He was Kate's childhood friend, first love, and admirer until he and his family moved away. And now that he's back, he immediately became Mr. Popular in her school. She doesn't know why he keeps on trying to talk to her while she consistently ignores and scrambles away from him---because talking to Mr. Popular will induce a great deal of torment from one of her worst tormentor, the school's Ms. Popular, Jessica Bolen. So when Henry persistently try befriending Kate, she was then perplexed whether this friendship with Henry is genuine or if he went over to the bad side and it was all just one of Jessica's mean prank...

See? The outline of the story alone will make you want to read this book, well, at least for me. Though I admit, I was a bit incredulous during the first few pages because Kate's life seemed exceedingly drastic. But as the story goes on, I eventually became so engrossed that I started to tear up whenever people abuse or torment her. So, somehow, this book made me appreciate life even more; that we are very lucky not to experience such unfortunate situation as Kate's. And so when I was done reading it, the first thought I had was: Good luck, Kate and Henry. Most especially Kate; she deserves all the best.

All in all, Heart on a Chain is an utterly heart-wrenching, and absolutely moving story of love, abuse, friendship, betrayal, family, and trust. Kudos to Ms. Cindy Bennett for an amazing novel.