Lost my Reason to Breath after reading this...

Reason to Breath

So this book is basically Twilight except no vampires and the main girl gets beaten every so often at home. It starts out like a typical high school day at Forks except, I don’t even know where it takes place to be honest… then a mysterious boys moves to the school and he is only interested in her, even though there are plenty of beautiful girls. Emma is a loner and really only has one friend and focuses on school and sports to get a scholarship, so of course Evan only wants her. He never turns into a vampire, werewolf, or mystical creature which is a letdown – but he does go away just like Edward in New Moon for about 3 months or something. She even has Bella-esq nightmares while Evan is away. Totally adorable. Then he comes back and everything’s ok! Even though she dated another guy and almost had sex with him, but didn’t so it’s all good. 

This is also the longest book in the world. I thought it was near the end about 3 times during the book, except the first time I was only at about 46%. I actually started to look forward to when the character would have a conflict with her Aunt because that’s when the book was interesting. It was too repetitive teenage love, Twilight for me to actually get invested. I felt like Emma was rather flat. I didn’t really care about her. The abusive scenes felt real at times and it made me anxious. It really helped push the book along. I got tired of just watching teenagers go to parties and get ready to go to the mall. It seemed like the abuse was really a back story that Donovan brought in every so often.
There were moments where I believed in the relationship between Emma and Evan – although more often I was unconvinced and bored.

Notice how most of my review is about a teenage relationship. That’s because this is what the book is. Don’t go into this book thinking you’re going to see the real struggles of a girl being abused. If you want those type novels then read Julie Ann Peters. Her stories revolve around conflicts that many teens go through and they are vivid and real. They help you grow and see things in a different light and hopefully, teach you lessons for life. This book, does not. Unless you use it as a How-To-Not-React-To-A-Friend-Being-Abused manual.

This book really could have been about 200 pages shorter if there wasn’t so much ooey-gooey-love story mixed with a love square for a bit. I won’t be reading the next story because I just don’t care enough to know anymore more about her life, which is sad because I should be rooting for her.