Kimmy was looking forward to her school's Halloween event, only, upon announcement of a horror maze, she's filled with the dread of being unable to partake due to her heart condition.

Used to a life of safety with her over protective mum using guidelines as hard set rules you have to comply by to stay feeling fine, instead, Kimmy starts feeling suffocated and explores painting and skating with friends over her mum's safety hobbies of ballet and chess.

This book was all about compromise at the heart of wanting to just explore your own passions fearlessly embracing the opportunities and learning to compromise in trusting each other having good intentions in your best interest.

Kimmy's story was heartfelt and fun to read. C. H. Williams' balance of whimsy and raw tween emotions is incredibly strong in this book. A perfect read for middle grade audiences, and even older.

This book was such a delight read especially for the October/Halloween vibes! It is written in short chapters, but each page paints a story where you can imagine everything the main character Kimmy is feeling, and thinking. From the beginning you are cheering Kimmy on as she wants to attend her school's scary maze. Due to her heart problems and overbearing mother, this idea seems close to impossible. Kimmy and her friends come up with a plan to see if Kimmy's heart can handle a few scares here and there and you can't help but enjoy each step of the way.
I would happily pick this book up again and again if I ever needed something to read that left me feeling hopeful and content at the end of it!

Thank you to NetGalley, Rosen Publishing Group, West 44 Books, and C.H. Williams for the opportunity to read Kimmy Carson is Not Scared in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is a HiLo poetic verse style that makes it easy and fun to read, even though the content deals with a more serious issue. The story follows title character Kimmy Carson in a first-person perspective. Kimmy is in middle school and she has a "cutie" heart, a heart that works just a bit slower than others. This means she needs to be careful not to get too excited or frightened. She even has a special medical bracelet she wears so that people don't play pranks unknowingly to spook her.

This year, her class gets to host the Halloween event, which she is very excited for. Unfortunately, it is a haunted maze, which means she cannot participate because of her heart. She finds some solace in helping paint the props, but she wants more from life. She soon finds herself ditching ballet classes to learn to skateboard, and it's fun! Kimmy finds that sometimes taking risks makes life much more fun.

This novel offers a unique perspective by exploring what life might be like for someone with a heart condition. Being born with it, her parents use the internet to find guidelines, but doctors may have other strategies or advice to offer. The story explores how people sometimes limit themselves (or parents limit their children) due to fear of something bad happening, but Kimmy learns that fear is a part of life, and being afraid of trying something is natural, but trying new things is also how people find out more about themselves and who they are.

This is a great novel for middle grade readers offering a perspective they likely have not thought about before. They may relate or know someone in a similar situation, and this novel offers a bridge of understanding and human experience to that.

This book was an amazing, quick spooky season read! I'm so glad I got an early copy off Netgalley and was able to follow Kimmy's journey as she battled to figure out who she is and how to keep herself safe. Representation is so important in text! This was an excellent introduction into her health troubles without being preachy. This book was fun to read! I cant wait for more people to get their hands on it!

In this book, we follow Kimmy, who suffers from a heart condition called “QT heart” — or as she likes to say, cutie heart — as she wants to take part in a horror maze organized by her school.
The story is written in verse, which made it a very smooth and fast read! I really enjoyed the book, although I felt that, perhaps because of the writing style, I didn’t fully connect with Kimmy on an emotional level.
It’s an ideal read for middle graders and absolutely perfect for the Halloween season.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC.

Ever since getting diagnosed with a heart condition, Kimmy has had to be careful. No pushing it at sports, no going to friends’ parties without her mom, not even getting scared is allowed: anything that makes her heart race could also stop it forever.

With a big Halloween celebration at school focused on a horror maze, Kimmy begins to push against the rules her mom laid out after her diagnosis. The novel-in-verse explores the joys, fears, and consequences that comes with that.

The novel-in-verse format may make it more accessible to developing readers, though the verse portions often read like a narrative with extra line breaks. What it lacks in lyricism or complexity, it makes up for with an interesting premise that allows readers to explore a “window” of life with chronic illness. Even tweens/teens without a “cutie heart” will relate to the duality of desire and fear when it comes to pushing the boundaries a parent sets.

Poor Kimmy is afraid of almost everything because she has a heart condition. This story told in verse from her perspective describes her daily fears and how an unexpected event leads her to the truth. Even though there are some serious issues here, there are some important lessons about how to live life more fully.

My bf once asked me if Ii know what brave people do. I said no and he told me that brave people do something no matter of they are scared.


This book, about a girl with a heart disease, made me feel less alone. I may not have a heart disease but I fear constantly. Being more like the mom because of all the what if's going through my head and the precautions I'm taking for things that may not even happen.

Kimmy has a heart condition that’s left her mom to be over protective and a little overbearing, stopping Kimmy from being happy and living a life she wants. As the school horror maze is being planned she knows she cannot be part of it. Then her friends start sharing skateboarding with her giving her such a rush, showing herself she can do things that scare her.

This was sweet, Kimmy knew she had to be careful, she never questioned what her mom made her do, but she also didn’t enjoy any of the activities she needed to do. I really liked seeing her branch out a little, getting to try new things, just slowly. I really liked her two best friends they both cared about her so much and didn’t want her sitting on the sidelines missing everything, they found perfect ways to include her.

With her heart condition, I totally got why her mom acted the way she did, but I do feel sad for Kimmy that her mom never considered her or how she felt, she thought about her heart and that was it. Kimmy felt trapped in a loop of boring activities, when she could see and hear all her friends having fun doing other things, I did feel whilst reading if only they could have talked and figured out better activities she could have done.

This was a very enjoyable and beautiful verse book, I liked that it dealt with a girl that has a heart condition, showing what life can look like with one. I liked how brave Kimmy became, how she started daring herself to try things that scared her. I also liked her friends and the new ones she made through the story.

One of the best parts about reading is how many different perspectives you can gather. How you can experience things without actually having to experience them. Kimmy Carson is not Scared is a perfect example of that. I really enjoyed our main character and could appreciate what it might be like to be a young person with a disease like that. To want to experience the world, but knowing something as simple as a haunted maze could take it all away from you. I really liked that this was clearly a hi-lo but it didn’t feel as cheesy and babyish as some do. I think my students would really like this one AND they’d be able to access it which makes it that much better.

I really enjoyed getting to read this book, it had that element that I was hoping for from the description and was engaged from start to finish. The characters were engaging and enjoyed the idea of Kimmy not being scared. C. H. Williams has a strong writing style and was glad it was everything that I was looking for.