Review: Barely Breathing
Nov •
15 •
2012
Barely Breathing by Rebecca Donovan Published by Self-Published on May 8th 2012
Genres: Young Adult-Contemporary
Source: Bought
Goodreads
"Emma’s struggle with an abusive home life came to a heart pounding conclusion in the final chapters of Reason to Breathe. Now everyone in Weslyn knows Emma’s secret, but Carol can’t hurt Emma anymore. Some are still haunted by the horror of that night, and some must face the repercussions of their choices. Fans of Rebecca Donovan’s debut novel will discover there’s still much to learn about Emma’s life."
With the last book ending so suddenly, I went right back on Amazon, buying the next book jumping right into it. This part of the story seemed harder to read than the first…
The reason that it is so hard to read is that even though Emma is finally out of harms way, it still haunts her. The dreams, flashbacks, insecurity… Everything that Emma did it always seemed to swing back to her past. As much as she tries to escape it’s their always reminding her of who she is. This is hard. I want Emma so badly to be alright but years of abuse can not wipe away clean. Emma still deals day to day the struggle that she went through before. She is coping the best that she can and that’s what hurts. Seeing Emma walk around like nothing happen when you know she is silently screaming inside.
Emma is now with her mother which I felt made things worse for Emma. She is with a lady who she doesn’t know and well, I felt like the mom did not do her job. Instead she thought selfishly about herself putting Emma once again in harms way. I don’t even want to get into this…SMH
The love interest didn’t go quite as like I expected. Yes, I did understand Evan. He was struggling just to get to Emma. He did what he could but, I felt at times he didn’t try hard enough. All he thought about was how Emma was shutting him out, blah, blah,blah. She’s been through a lot you jerk, back off!
*rant over*
Barely Breathing is another fierce confrontation that will made you wince. Every chapter adds pump up tension that at times you can’t stand to see Emma go through that again. Never mistake that just because the fight is over the war is won. Barely Breathing is nail-biting compelling story that you must read.
I give it 5 BITES!
Happy Reading!
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WOW.. This sounds like a very intense book. It seems realistic that Emma would still be haunted by her past. Lovely review!
– Farah @ MajiBookshelf
This sounds just as emotional and intense as the first one. I will have to check out this series. It sounds so good.
This series does sound interesting — I love intense nail-biting kind of books!
This is a series?! I’m going to need to spend even more time shoring up my courage now – one book I can usually make it through, but a whole series where bad things happen to Emma? That’s painful. In a good way because I love books like this, but painful nonetheless. Thanks for putting these books on my radar Savy!
Second books usually aren’t as satisfying to me – mostly because they add complications when I want the characters to be happy 🙂
I would so be with you on that rant. I mean, if you are having problems then ask someone who knows about the stuff instead of being a jerk. Oh but a series? I wouldn’t have thought it would be one considering the subject matter. Hats off to the author for being so brave!
Oh nice it’s great to see a sequel that was so good! I often get very dissapointed with them! Glad you enjoyed this, Savvy!