Reason to Breathe (Breathing, #1)

by Rebecca Donovan

(Warning: This review contains a bunch of intended and unintended breathing puns!)

I was reading a helluva amount of dystopias and wanted to try something different. I wanted to read something that was dark, deep and depressing (please don't ask me about my frame of mind at the time). I wanted something that would tug my heartstrings, so I picked up this book from my school library.

Reason to Breathe was a difficult book to connect with at first, but as soon as I got into it, I started to enjoy it. From the beginning, I could feel that there was something horrible going on and as I kept on turning the pages, I felt as though things were going to become worse. It was this feeling that made me WANT to read the book, DREAD (Like I said before, please don't question my frame of mind)!.

Reason to Breathe deals with a very serious issue, abuse. I wanted this book to feel realistic, filled with scars and healing and Rebecca Donovan managed to do this by allowing me to feel Emma's depth of despair. Even although the book dealt with abuse in a fairly good manner, I felt that it could have been handled much better. This is going to sound really bad, but there wasn't anything special about Reason to Breathe, the abuse aspect was kind of cliche'.

Emma, the main character, is a great student and an amazing athlete, but her outside appearance doesn't match how she feels on the inside. Emma was a mixed bag. I admired her strength and her selflessness, but I also found it to be really foolish. This isn't really a spoiler because it appears early in the book, but just in case, Emma's aunt Carol abuses her, but Emma doesn't want to go to the authorities because she doesn't want Carol's children to lose Carol. This got me thinking that if she abuses Emma, what stops her from abusing her own children?

Romance plays a huge role in Reason to Breathe. At times, I felt as though the romance overshadowed the abuse aspect of the book. Evan, the love interest, seemed to be the pushy, stalking and a I'm-good-at-everything guy, but I have to admit that my first impression of him was way off. He turns out to be a really cool and understand guy who's great boyfriend material. The attraction that he and Emma had was really cute and when Drew got in the way I was furious.

The other characters were also well written. Sara was the ideal and loyal best friend. I loathed Carol with every breath that I took (pun unintended) and I felt enraged that George actually accepted and made excuses for the abuse that took place in his home.

Even although it seemed that I had grips with this book, I didn't. It was just that the strong points of Reason the Breathe was also its weak points. Reason to Breathe was gripping and fulfilled its purpose. It was dark, deep, depressing, it tugged at my heartstrings and made me feel a ton of emotions, especially RAGE.

And of course to make my life miserable, there was a cliff hanger at the end. You all know how I love cliff hangers (please note:sarcasm). I need to find Barely Breathing, so that I can start breathing (pun intended) and see how life plays out for Emma.