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A review by librariann
Breathless by Jessica Warman
2.0
Swimmer Katie and her older brother Will live in a hick town in SW Pennsylvania, but her family is wealthy in comparison to the rest of their neighbors. Katie blames her brother's schizophrenia (diagnosed as drug induced) on the bullying Will received because he was "rich" and therefore different. In order to distance her from Will, who has grown increasingly violent and erratic, Katie is sent to boarding school her sophomore year. She falls in with the beautiful people, and tells them her brother is dead. As the years pass, Katie struggles with her relationship with her brother, parents, and other students. A lazy girl's "Prep."
Breathless is one of those books that is interesting, even sort of enjoyable while you read it, but which doesn't hold up when you think about it. Example: the school's convenient anti-technology policy enables a key plot point, but when reading the author's note (and realizing that she based it "80 - 90 percent" on her own life) it becomes a lazy method of avoiding the fact that the story happened 10-15 years ago.
Breathless is one of those books that is interesting, even sort of enjoyable while you read it, but which doesn't hold up when you think about it. Example: the school's convenient anti-technology policy enables a key plot point, but when reading the author's note (and realizing that she based it "80 - 90 percent" on her own life) it becomes a lazy method of avoiding the fact that the story happened 10-15 years ago.