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    Reason to Breathe
    Reason to Breathe
    Reason to Breathe
    Audiobook14 hours

    Reason to Breathe

    Written by Rebecca Donovan

    Narrated by Kate Rudd

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Reason to Breathe is the first book in the million-copy bestselling Breathing Series.

    “No one tried to get involved with me, and I kept to myself. This was the place where everything was supposed to be safe and easy. How could Evan Mathews unravel my constant universe in just one day?“

    In the affluent town of Weslyn, Connecticut, where most people worry about what to be seen in and who to be seen with, Emma Thomas would rather not be seen at all. She’s more concerned with feigning perfection—pulling down her sleeves to conceal the bruises, not wanting anyone to know how far from perfect her life truly is. Without expecting it, she finds love. It challenges her to recognize her own worth―at the risk of revealing the terrible secret she’s desperate to hide.

    Reason to Breathe is one girl’s story of life-changing love, unspeakable cruelty, and her precarious grasp of hope.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJun 4, 2013
    ISBN9781480519961
    Reason to Breathe
    Author

    Rebecca Donovan

    Rebecca Donovan, the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling YA author of The Breathing Series and What If, lives in a small town in Massachusetts with her son. Influenced by and obsessed with music, Rebecca can often be found jumping around at concerts, or on a plane to go see one. She's determined to experience (not just live) life. And then write about it.

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    Reviews for Reason to Breathe

    4/5

    258 ratings24 reviews

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    • 5/5
      i absolutely love this book !!i highly recommend listening and buying the physical book
    • 5/5
      Where do I start? Amazing, heart wrenching, extremely emotional, beautifully written novel.

      I loved it! I just couldn’t put it down, I just had to see what happened next. It’s definitely one of those books that just lingers for a while after being read. One of my favorite books that I’ve read this year.
      Emma Thomas is every parent’s dream. She’s an excellent student. She does her chores without complaint and helps with the younger kids at home. She’s a star athlete and a talented artist. Her best friend, Sara, is one of the most popular girls in school. So why then does she live her life in a perpetual state of fear? Emma has a dark secret about which no one, not even Sara, knows the truth. Emma is not looking for someone to rescue her. She keeps a safe distance from those around her, never wanting anyone to get close enough to discover what she’s hiding. She is barely coping with the terror, but telling someone the truth would have devastating consequences.......

      Read more of this review on myblog
      -------------------------------------------
      UPDATE: 10/09/16
      Ahhhhhh!!! I forgot how much I love this boook
    • 4/5
      ...still trying to metabolize the ending...
    • 4/5
      I went into this knowing it was going to deal with abuse and that it was heartbreaking, and it was. This deals with abuse (physical and emotional). Your heart will break for Emma as you know things with her Aunt were just going to get worse and worse.I do think this was a little longer than it needed to be. All though this deals with Emma facing the challenges of living with her Aunt and Uncle, it was also about a high school romance. There were other high school issues as well. The love story took up more of the story than the issues with Emma and her family. If you like reading a story that deals with these issues but also focuses on other things you would love this.I do feel this story brings the opportunity to discuss abuse with teenagers (school aged children) and the importance of this topic when someone knows abuse is occurring. Emma puts her best friend and boyfriend in a complicated situation to keep her secret about the abuse occurring from her Aunt. They do not want to betray Emma’s trust, so they do not say anything. I think it is important topic to cover with our teens/kids around what to do if they know a friend who is being abused.Overall, this was pretty good. I own the bind-up of book one and two so I will be continuing with book two in the series.
    • 5/5
      This book really grabbed me and the end was just as interesting as the beginning, which is why I decided to read book 2 right away. I read this book by borrowing it from Amazon Prime and bought the other two books of the series before I finished it. The series is very well written and captivating.
    • 2/5
      This book has received rave reviews and the premise sounded interesting, but it ended up being just another unrealistic teen romance. Emma is physically and emotionally abused by her aunt, which is quite descriptive and violent, but honestly, these parts of the book add the only drama to an otherwise monotonous story.
    • 5/5
      Definitely a must read...... this is going to be a good trilogy once "Out of Breath" is released!
    • 5/5
      Wow, a powerful tale of a young woman's journey through high school while enduring the horrible burden of living in an abusive household. The pace of the story is slow but it is needed in my opinion to get the full impact of what Emma is living through. She makes it through everyday with the help of her friend Sara. She's counting down the days until she can leave for college and gets through fine until the new guy in school Evan Mathews turns her world up side down. This is a great read but be warned it is not the complete story. Emma's story continues through two additional books. Her story is worth the time and I highly recommend it.
    • 3/5
      This was such a frustrating book, but it had really good moments and I was very enthralled with her writing. BUT she has a Dick Francis thing going on, where main character was beaten to sh** all the time for no good reason, but she stoically took it. I find that annoying and not at all interesting/enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      BEST BOOK EVER!!!
    • 5/5
      once I actually started reading this book It consumed me and I could not put it down, I needed to know what happened next.. I truly understand why she felt the need to just deal with what was happening to her , versus saying something to someone other then Sara.
    • 5/5
      this book had me on an emotional roller-coaster. I really had a lump in my throat and chest when I was reading all of Emma's tribulations. I was wanting to hug her and protect her. It was heart wrenching watching her go through all that and the thought processes just made me full of angst and sympathy for her. I loved Evan and Sara and could feel their feelings of hopelessness and also their deep devotion to help Emma, even though they did not know the extent of her suffering.
      I am lucky that I had the second book, Barely Breathing, to keep reading, straight after taking a deep breathe and closing my mouth after my jaw had dropped, when I read what is one of the biggest cliffhangers I have ever read.
      You really know how to make a heart stop Rebecca Donovan
    • 5/5
      *****POSSIBLE SPOILERS*****
      I really liked this book. The author did a great job of making the characters coming alive to me. I always held out hope that things would get better for the main character. When the book was ending I thought she was finally going to get out and be able to be happy but that didn't happen and the book left me feeling sad for all the characters in the book.
    • 4/5
      Very solid read. The only thing keeping it from 5 stars is I felt it dragged a bit in the middle. I can say I'm glad I read it with just one day to wait before the sequel, cause, man, what an ending!

      More to come after sleep and deep thoughts- this was an all-nighter.

    • 2/5
      Another solid meh. It had potential, but parts of it I just didnt buy. Take Carol for instance. I couldn't fully get hehind her hatred for Emma. I was expected some deep, dark secret to come out that explained it, but it never came. The whole threatened crazy-cakes angle just didnt seem, I don't know, enough for me. It could just be me, but I can't understand where her hatred came from...certainly not as intense as it was.

      The whole story itself was a bit drawn out, i found myself skimming often just to get further. But the abuse was handled well, and most of it keep me reading.

      I didnt buy Emma's reasoning for enduring the abuse for so long. Granted, people that have been abused don't always think clearly but my hatred for her would be so great that i would want to strip her of everything she loved and would feel better if she were never around children again.

      Overall, not a bad read but it wasnt without its issues. I however liked it enough to find out what happens in the sequel. Hopefully its a little more realistic.
    • 5/5
      I didn't know what to expect before I read this novel. It wasn't one that I had really heard about prior to starting it. I was glad that I went in with such an open-mind because I have a feeling that if I had let others' opinions of it influence me, then I wouldn't have enjoyed it so much.Actually, I don't know that enjoy is the right word. This book mainly deals with the abusive home-life of the main character, Emma Thomas. And when it deals with it, it does so in a very graphic fashion. The physical blows are described in full. The emotional abuse is also very vivid. If you are triggered by this sort of thing, you might want to avoid the book or just proceed with caution.Rebecca Donovan does an excellent job with the subject matter, though, which is amazing to me. Many writers cannot write abusive situations that are actually believable. Donovan obviously doesn't have that issue with this story. Of course, she also writes about Emma going through this abuse while going to high school and falling in love, so the story isn't just about the abuse. The reader is able to see the way the abuse impacts every decision that Emma makes from what she does when she isn't at home to the clothes that she wears to the people that she wants to be up-front about the abuse with.I would really recommend this book to just about anyone who likes young/new adult books and who don't have an issue with reading about books that deal with abusive situations.
    • 4/5
      Emma is a pro at hiding herself, even with her talented skills as a basketball player and being the best friend of a popular girl at school, Emma blends into the background and always keeps herself out of the spotlight and detached from becoming to close to anyone. Its not that Emma doesn't want these things, she does, but in the sense of self preservation and the overwhelming embarrassment that has befallen her life, she keeps to herself and tells no one the truth. The shocking truth being that even as a teenager who can take care of herself, and one you would never see as needing help, is and has been suffering horrendous abuse at the hands of her Aunt. After losing her parents, Emma was sent to live with her dads brother, for years she has lived with the secret of her abuse, which slowly turned from ugly taunts and harsh chores to severe physical assaults. Nobody knows about it, and while her best friend Sara suspects issues are going on she never tells anyone or pushes Emma to reveal her secrets, she only attempts to make life easier by buying her clothes, dressing her up, taking her out when they can fool her aunt and encouraging Emma to take risks, especially with new guys. However guys are the least of Emma's worries, until she meets new boy in school Evan. A guy who knows nothing about her, the rumors or her past.Emma has always kept her distance when it comes to dating and even making new friends, in the fear of someone finding out her secret her walls have always been high and concrete, she doesn't go out or even act like a normal teenager. Slowly with an ever increasing attraction, Evan seems to be able to scale her walls and break down all her defenses, to the point that Emma is willing to sneak around to see him, even if it means being beaten later. As the two grow closer Evan can see something is not right with Emma, something that is dark and something he desperately wants to save her from. Emma fights him at every turn, years of mental abuse and the fear of her little cousins being thrown into foster care have programmed Emma so deeply she can't turn her aunt in, she cant tell her secret, the only thing she can do is get to graduation and not let people in. As Evan gets closer to the truth and Sara figures things out, she pushes them away choosing isolation instead without knowing its the worst mistake of her life.Reason to Breathe was an intense read, outside of the frightening physical torture and assaults that came randomly, the daily abuse and mental stress of not knowing what each day would bring was truly heartbreaking to watch the main character go through. The name calling and emotional abuse to the agonizing chores and outrageous regulations Emma had to follow was in itself just awful reading, highly due to the fact that Emma is such a frustrating character. On one hand its hard to understand with the support system around her why she would choose to keep her secret, on the other though from a physiological stand point it makes complete sense. While I really enjoyed the social commentary and drama and understood why the other characters didn't do anything in the beginning, I did find a few things problematic that I felt threw off the dynamic of Emma's character. I loathed the "Drew" phase, it was unneeded and annoying. I also had a hard time with some central adults in the book who did nothing to help Emma even when they saw it and decided to keep quiet until things had escalated so profoundly their help in the end came a little to late. Its unfortunately a sad reality that most often happens concerning abused children, we look the other way, we keep quiet to long and we fail to rescue these kids trapped in a world they have no control over.Overall even with a few hiccups along the way, this story packs a punch. Im still picking my jaw off the floor at the genius of Rebecca Donovan's heartbreaking, emotional read and traumatic ending.
    • 1/5
      Yeeeeah, I really wanted to like this book until it ended up seeming as though it was just another book about a teenage girl laying all her hopes for a better life in a knight in shining armor. I really, really wished the author had focused on the girl's own inner strength and how she deals with and eventually escapes abuse instead of trying to make it into... well, this. : Wasted opportunity, if you ask me.
    • 5/5
      Emily “Emma” lives in a nightmare of her aunt’s rage and her uncle’s ambivalence to the abuse she endures daily.Emma lives continuously in her terrifying reality to keep her small cousins safe from their mother’s unwarranted hate. Her best friend Sara is the only light in her dark existence, and Emma won’t let anyone else into her life.Until Evan refuses to let her avoid him and ends up slipping past the mile high barriers that Emma’s put up around herself. As her aunt’s abuse escalates to a horrible brutality, no one can overlook that something very wrong is happening to Emma at home. That’s when her aunt finally goes too far.Reason to Breathe was a look at one girl’s traumatic reality. Throughout the entire book, I was unceasingly praying for Emma’s escape. Rebecca Donovan wrote an intense, highly emotional story that filled me with hope and despair.Absolutely amazing read. I can’t say enough about the emotional depth of Reason to Breathe… Read it as soon as possible!
    • 5/5
      This is one of those stories that is soo good yet so hard to read. It brings strong emotions alive in the reader that you feel utterly helpless while you sit and read every single demeaning, hurtful, scaring word.What I loved most about this book is the plot. This plot deals with both physical and verbal abuse. Let me tell that this is hard to read. Each chapter, your forced to feel and watch Emma struggle with many hard decisions that it just shatters my heart over and over again. I know some people will say that Emma should have said something. That she should of ran away or stand up to her abuser. Let me tell you that those options are not always easy. Especially when all Emma had was herself. The plot gives a great detail of exactly what abuse it like. It's ugly, horrible, and downright evil!The love interest in the book didn't really come into a love till near the end. It formed as a friendship in which Emma finally made a friend after keeping so many out. Emma walls slowly crumble when her heart begins to love again. I felt for Emma. She was so scared to love, so scared to bring anything from home down on Evan, but Emma, it's not your fault! That's what I am dying to tell her. It's not your fault. Evan is a fantastic guy who really felt for Emma and gave her each part of him when he can. He didn't push but slowly gained Emma's trust and help her when she needed it. Lord knows Emma needed a real friend and love.Reason To Breathe is an explicit story of abuse. It's real, raw and so hard to read that at times I had to put it down just to gain control of myself. Its an emotional, shocking story that will bring you to your knees. Reason To Breathe resonates an strong impacting story that you will never forget.
    • 5/5
      This book is not for the faint of heart. I could not help but feel cringe during certain parts of this book. You know you have stumbled upon a good author when the words you read break your heart.
    • 4/5
      Wow, this book was heart wrenchingly emotional. I have a hard time believing someone could treat another human being so badly, but I know it happens. The characters in this book are real; there are times you love them, hate them, and question their decisions, but ultimately you will understand why they do what they do. If you enjoy emotional romances and are looking for something a little different I would recommend this book. This book ends in a major cliff-hanger, don’t read it unless you have the second book ready to go
    • 3/5
      I was super excited to read the book because it has such a high rating. Unfortunately I was sadly disappointed. I really wanted the main character to be a strong lead female character but it was just...ugh. Whatever. Usually for every book, I'll write a review, whether it's good or bad, but I can't even bring myself to write a review for this novel.Reason to Breathe is about the horrible home life and abuse that Emily suffers and how she tries to endure all the crap that goes on in her house, biding her time until she graduates from high school and can go to college on a sports scholarship.What's really hard for me to endure about this book is that, yeah, Emily lives in a horrible environment, but she won't seek help even though some wonderful people offer it, over and over again. There are so many times that she could have stood up for herself but she never does. I could totally understand her situation if no one supported her and there was no one she could turn to...but lots of people wanted to help her! Grrrr! The situation is just very frustrating. And apparently in the next novel, it's the same cycle over again. Bleh.
    • 4/5
      Abuse no matter what shape or form is never a pretty picture. While everyone knows that it exists; we continue our daily lives avoid the subject and situation that may be surrounding us. Donovan creates a story here that throws it all in your face with no sympathy. This honest and realistic novel will shed light onto the secret world, and wrap it into a simple love story. This is a powerful and fantastic read. Beautifully writing this novel will grab readers attention; while opening their eyes to the horror of this girls story. The ending drops of at a cliff hanger, and the epilogue still left me slightly unclear as to where the story ends. Although, I was relieved to find the Rebecca Donovan is creating a sequel that will lay all my worries to rest. I look forward to seeing how this story will continue to shape.