Breathing Underwater. Alix Flinn. New York NY: 2001. 272 pages
A slap? Is it really all that harmful? Well if you were Nick you would soon find out that little things lead up to something worse. Caitlin and Nick always seemed happy. No one really had seen what went on when they were alone. Nick verbally abused Caitlin, and then one day he hit her. That hit turned into a punch. Caitlin’s parents brought Nick to court and got a restraining order against him. Nick had to go to Violence Class and sit around with six other guys who have hit their girlfriends. This book would mostly be for women. It is a love story and suspense novel all in one. The audience would be targeted to a high school age group. It is a type of book not all women can relate to yet, all women know about.
This teen novel that deals with violence in dating is an extremely interesting book. It has a little love story theme to it but yet it is a nightmare no woman would want to encounter. I gave it a nine and a half. This book made me feel like I could understand the characters. It made me feel like I was right there with them. I felt like I could feel Caitlin's pain and I totally understood how she felt. Then again the book kept me in suspense. I never knew what was going to happen next. The thing I thought would happen turned out to be something different. The book did not end the way I wanted it to; that’s what maybe made it so good. It left me wondering what happened when the book ends.
Reviewed by Felicia