Heartbeat
by Sharon Creech

Annie's world is always changing. Her mother is pregnant and her grandfather is losing his memory, but what doesn't seem to change is her best friend, Max, a thirteen year old boy "training to escape". They run together all the time, but one day Max joins a track team and tries to persuade Annie into running with the girls' team, but she doesn't like running with anyone except Max.

It is written in a way that most of Sharon's other works aren't, and it is littered in footnotes (29, to be exact). As you may noticed, the cover art in front of the book doesn't exactly match the title, but it displays the change that happens in the novel, and just like Annie's world, the apples changes from one form to another...

This is a very good read for me but it bothered me to see that Annie mentions punching her friend Max in a couple of instances in this publication for unnecessary reasons.