Reviewed by Grant Leishman for Readers' Favorite

Alive and Beating by Rebecca Wolf is a powerful exposition of how one family’s pain and suffering can bring new hope and life to many others. When a young Jewish girl from America traveled to Israel to train as an intern at the Israeli Guide Dog Center, little did she or her family realize what an enormous difference this would make in six strangers' lives. Traveling on a bus near Jerusalem, she, her classmate, and twenty other people’s lives were devastated when a suicide bomber exploded a bomb strapped to himself and destroyed the bus. Although she was killed instantly by a piece of shrapnel that severed her brain stem, her body was virtually untouched. As a registered organ donor, she was in perfect physical condition to help save six different people on the donor lists. This novel tells the stories of the fortunate recipients of her tragic demise. 

Alive and Beating is an immensely moving and poignant story, as author Rebecca Wolf seamlessly ties together the disparate lives, social status, sex, and ethnicity of six recipients of this tragic death. It reminds us most vividly that sickness and disease are no respecter of background and circumstances and can strike any of us at any time. The six organ recipients benefit from two kidneys, a pair of lungs, a liver, a pancreas, and a heart. What I particularly enjoyed was the little synchronicities that united and linked many of the characters within the story. I also enjoyed stripping away the politics and religious animosity of the region. Hope, a desire to live, and a common humanity are universal and this is reflected in the narrative. The author did address it though, when Yosef asked Youssef how he would respond if he discovered he had received a Jewish heart. His answer summed up the theme of this story. All he cared about was the possibility of playing basketball again. I appreciated the author’s note at the end that this idea for a novel had arisen from someone she had known, a childhood friend, who was killed by a suicide bomber and had donated her organs for transplant. I was deeply moved by all the stories but if one resonated more than the others, it would be that of the two teenage boys; Arab Youssef and Jewish Yosef. This is a wonderful story that I highly recommend.