Reasons to Breathe by Rebecca Donovan is the story of Emma Thompson, a seemingly perfect high school student with only one friend, who is the victim of child abuse from her aunt. While the story focuses around the love that develops between Emma and a new boy named Evan and her struggle to let someone new into her life, it is constantly interrupted by her abusive aunt. Emma’s aunt and uncle took her in when she was 12 years old, after her alcoholic mother could no longer care for her. Since then her aunt has developed an unprecedented hate towards Emma, not only emotionally abusing her, but taking any chance she can to hurt Emma physically as well.
I bought this book because I’ve gotten into a funk where I’ve been reading teen lit novels, just because they can be as relaxing to read as watching TV. But Reasons to Breathe was not that mellow of a read. At some points it was even scary. I don’t personally have any experience with child abuse, but my grandparents are foster parents and they often have to take care of kids who are victims, and from what my grandmother has told me, Donovan seems to be pretty spot-on with her story. Child abuse is a touchy subject that’s often hard to realistically portray in a novel, but I think Donovan successfully intertwined its hardships into her book.
The love story aspect was a little unrealistic, as most teenage boys are not nearly as dedicated as Evan was to Emma, but it made the story a lot more enthralling so I can appreciate his presence a lot. Because of all the teenage love plot points, I would recommend Reasons to Breathe primarily to teenage and young adult girls, but the abuse aspect makes it dramatic enough for a wider range of people to find it interesting.
Reasons to Breathe is only available on the Kindle, so that limits the number of people that are able to read it. When I figured out it was only available in e-book form, that honestly did bother me a little. As much as I love my Kindle and how easy it is to have access to thousands of books at almost any given time, it seems like books that are exclusively available in electronic form is the first step to the death of print books. I really hope that print books don’t ever completely die out because there’s just something special about having a tangible book to read and hold.
