Reason to breathe - a review
Reason to breathe - Rebecca Donovan
The blurb " In a town where people worry about what they are seen in and who they are seen with, Emma Thomas doesn't want to be seen at all. She's more concerned with feigning perfection - which means pulling down her sleeves to conceal the bruises . Emma doesn't want anyone to know how far from perfect her life truly is.
But when Emma unexpectedly finds love it challenges her to recognize her own worth, at the risk of revealing the terrible secret she's desperate to hide. "
When I picked this book up In work it was in adult literary fiction, It wasn't supposed to be and I know had I found it in teenage fiction where it belonged I might have been able to see beyond the appealing cover and saved myself a few hours.
The plot of the book intrigued me when I read the cover but I was expecting well written prose and instead I got a watered down plot that skims over the big issues.
From a few pages in it was clear that Riis was not the book I had been expecting and I'd realized by then it was not an adult book but I soldiered on as it made for easy reading. It only took me a few hotels to read but it left me with a vague sense
Of disappointment and no desire to read
Either of the follow ups as I can't imagine that her writing style vastly improves over the next two books.
my main issue is this; the outline of the overall story Wasn't bad. It's the writing itself I'm taking issue with. I feel as though she could have tackled Emma's home situation more delicately and in more detail rather than skimming over it somewhat to get to the bit where she does or doesn't kiss the boy and also her motivations for keeping her home life so secret seem at best to be vague. I feel
The author could have done so much more with the story if she wasn't
So concerned with dumbing it down for the young adults.
My review in a nutshell, if you were going to read this don't bother, there are better books out there regardless of if you're a teen or an adult or somewhere Inbetween
The blurb " In a town where people worry about what they are seen in and who they are seen with, Emma Thomas doesn't want to be seen at all. She's more concerned with feigning perfection - which means pulling down her sleeves to conceal the bruises . Emma doesn't want anyone to know how far from perfect her life truly is.
But when Emma unexpectedly finds love it challenges her to recognize her own worth, at the risk of revealing the terrible secret she's desperate to hide. "
When I picked this book up In work it was in adult literary fiction, It wasn't supposed to be and I know had I found it in teenage fiction where it belonged I might have been able to see beyond the appealing cover and saved myself a few hours.
The plot of the book intrigued me when I read the cover but I was expecting well written prose and instead I got a watered down plot that skims over the big issues.
From a few pages in it was clear that Riis was not the book I had been expecting and I'd realized by then it was not an adult book but I soldiered on as it made for easy reading. It only took me a few hotels to read but it left me with a vague sense
Of disappointment and no desire to read
Either of the follow ups as I can't imagine that her writing style vastly improves over the next two books.
my main issue is this; the outline of the overall story Wasn't bad. It's the writing itself I'm taking issue with. I feel as though she could have tackled Emma's home situation more delicately and in more detail rather than skimming over it somewhat to get to the bit where she does or doesn't kiss the boy and also her motivations for keeping her home life so secret seem at best to be vague. I feel
The author could have done so much more with the story if she wasn't
So concerned with dumbing it down for the young adults.
My review in a nutshell, if you were going to read this don't bother, there are better books out there regardless of if you're a teen or an adult or somewhere Inbetween
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