“Loving Fully With Half a Heart’ by Valerie Carpenter is a great and emotional read. Valerie was born with tricuspid artesia which means she was born with half a heart. She had to have three heart operations at a very young age in order to survive. She has an older sister named Jackie who Valerie was very jealous of. She was jealous of her because she got to go home and Valerie had to stay in the hospital.
Valerie did an amazing job with saying how she felt without actually saying it. This made the story so intriguing and I wanted to continue reading. In the beginning of the sixth paragraph she says “ I cried the Christmas of 2010 when my sister gave me a homemade photo album.”  I loved this part because her sister was so sweet to put in all the effort of finding photos of them together and quotes that she found on the internet. I understand why she cried because she thought her sister got all of the attention but since she was in the hospital she was actually getting most of the attention and Jackie started to feel unloved. I have an older sister and the thought of not getting to see her everyday really breaks my heart and I can understand what Valerie and Jackie had to go through. They had to spend years being apart and then one Christmas they get really close again.
Overall, Valerie wrote a fantastic story that will make you sad,happy and relieved. She was able to write a perfect story with a great lesson; You shouldn’t think about yourself and how you feel, you need to think about how other people feel. Anyways, great story Valerie!