Reason to Breathe (Breathing #1)

Reason to Breathe by Rebecca Donovan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is not for the faint of heart.

Emma seems to be your run-of-the-mill high school junior. She's obsessive about her grades and a star athlete. She's also been sent to live with her aunt and uncle and their two children - and her aunt is abusive. The woman is truly randomly and illogically evil. I began to suspect mental illness in the end.

It's a hard story to read. Emma stays quiet about the abuse for her own reasons. The story is probably pretty accurate in terms of reality; high school kids may have a limited scope sometimes in terms of long-lasting consequences, but they generally have a good foundational reason for the short-sighted things they do. But Emma as a character knows exactly what she's doing and why. It was oddly comforting to read that she knew she could go into any office and report her aunt, but chose not to do so.

This is a completely character driven story despite the glaring social issue. And the characters behave like typical high-schoolers. There are parties, hook-ups, homework and homecoming games. It is set in an affluent neighborhood in Connecticut, so there are all the typical rich-kid toys as well. The side characters are enjoyable and the love interest is every teenage girl's perfect guy.

While this book moves along at a relatively good pace, it did seem to slow at times. It takes place over about a year, so there were non-specific lengths of time where nothing really happened. There is also a relationship that happens that I couldn't wait to get past. It involved the immaturity of teenagers in high school - but that's what the book is about. So a young-adult audience would probably find it much faster paced than I did.

This isn't one of those books that really examines an abused child as much as it's a story about a girl. She just happens to be abused. There's a lot more going on in her life than the abuse, so the story is rounded out as a YA contemporary romance more than social commentary. This book doesn't try and teach anything to the reader other than to portray a young girl in a terrible situation who thinks she has no options.

It does end on a massive cliffhanger. Fortunately all the books are out in the series, so there's no waiting to get to the next one. This is one that's hard to put down, leaving you grasping for the next book. Thank goodness there's more to Emma's story than just this one.

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