Try Not to Breathe
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A raw and powerful coming-of-age novel that illuminates the importance of human connection in overcoming the darkness within.
“Haunting, hopeful and masterfully crafted.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Following in the footsteps of It’s Kind of a Funny Story and Thirteen Reasons Why, this novel sensitively tackles the topic of teen suicide.”—The Horn Book
Every day, Ryan Turner must face the reality that everyone knows what he did. Ryan’s only solace comes from the local waterfall, where the violent crashing of the water clears his mind of everything.
But then one day, a girl named Nicki Thornton throws herself into his solitary world. Nicki is direct about his past and determined to crash through the wall of glass that Ryan has put between himself and others. She seeks answers to questions that she knows only Ryan can understand. Nicki dives deeper into his life, opening his heart closer to the shameful secrets that he has tried to bury. Ryan knows he does not have all of the answers that she seeks, but he realizes that he may have found an answer to his own questions in her.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her second novel, Hubbard (The Secret Year) compellingly portrays the quiet anguish of "after." Sixteen-year-old Ryan has endured too much in a year a new school, mono, romantic rejection, and a suicidal gesture that sends him to a psychiatric facility. Now he is coping with the reality that there is no tidy closure to these events, much less a happy ending. He has to go back to school, to the same parents, and to adolescence, and nothing has gotten easier while he's been gone. His only friends are the ones he made in the hospital, and the "Patterson Honesty" they communicated with there has given way to more socially palatable half-lies. The kids at school, meanwhile, just sneak glances at him or mock him as "creepy." Then he befriends Nicki younger, bolder, and persistent who demands that Ryan put into words what he has gone through, and everything starts to change. Hubbard is outstandingly successful at capturing the frustration of not having the words, especially in a culture that does not encourage boys to express what Ryan is feeling. Ages 14 up.
