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| Breathe My Name R.A. Nelson |
This was an interesting book...hmmmm, no, that might not be the right word for it. I have to say, I read this book with a different perspective than most will read it. As a foster parent...a mother of children who have seen and lived through things they just shouldn't have seen and lived through. This is a book about one such child who survived a mother who had severe issues...maybe schizophrenia? Not really sure what her diagnosis was...it might even say in the book but it's been a while since I actually read this that I had to go back through and refresh my memory a bit. So we have this teenage girl on the verge of adulthood...18 years of age who doesn't just have the struggle of life between being Mom and Dad's kid and an adult but also the struggle of a past with a Mother who she no longer has a relationship with who is actually in an insane asylum and the memory of siblings who do not have the same opportunities she has been given (I don't want to give too much away so am going to leave it at that).
Then we also have the VERY strange twist of someone wanting an eye for an eye...and trying to ensure it happens...and then that same mother who took away the happy thoughts of childhood giving this 18 year old girl her the gift of an adult life which if she wasn't there, she wouldn't have.
Like I said, it's an odd book...at first I was thinking this would be a great book for some of the teens I know who were adopted out of foster care to read...but after getting to the end...ummmm....no. There's violence...a twist that is twisted and unexpected.
I did like the thoughts that the main character (Frances) has in the story. The story makes you question what it would really take to not only forgive or to get forgiven but what about eternity? What does it take to buy your spot in heaven after doing something so wrong it seems you can never make things right? Here is a quote I found to be a very neutral answer to that question.
"One thing I am sure of--death is a very big place. There is room for all kinds of people." So she categorizes heaven and hell together into one place called 'death' and leaves it at that.
Okay...as far as imagination and character development...great job on the main character...everyone else was sort of background info and that was okay...you got the idea of who the people were and what they were about. You felt the sadness when Frances meets her father, you can feel the regret, the choices, the disgust. You can also feel that Frances no longer fits into that world...and wonder how she ever did fit into that world. It's amazing how children move from such a horrible situation and learn to thrive in a wonderful family. I have seen it firsthand and this book did a good job of showing it.
The twist is the story is totally unexpected...but I almost felt like it didn't fit. It wasn't what this book seemed to be about...kind of like you have this puzzle before you and one piece left and it's a nice piece but it's not the one that fits into THAT puzzle. ODD...that's the best word for it. It wasn't horrible...just odd and a bit unsettling.
For the feeling of discontentment the book left me with, I'm going to leave this book with three star...maybe even 2.75 stars. I wouldn't let young teens read it...it's disquieting...young adults perhaps. I didn't walk away glad that I had read this book...but it made some good points...showed me a person with a certain perspective some good character development and transition (but not very universal). I also for the sake of the author will say I'm not a person who enjoys reading about mentally ill mothers...a personal thing so that could be part of my disquiet as well. When a child is afraid of her own mother, when she knows that there is something not quite right but no one else knows or maybe she has everyone else fooled, it is a heavy burden to bear, that fear. An excerpt from the book that was a perfect description of that fear for me, and I will leave you with this...
"In the night, in my imagination, there is no light where she is. Momma moves on the tips of her big fingers, scrabbling along on a dirty concrete floor like a spider. She is a spider. That is what she has become.
Maybe that's what she always was. Only none of us knew, because she kept it hidden. And through everything, all the times she was kissing us or playing games with us or being the queen of our pretend kingdom, really she was a spider underneath everything, just itching to break free. And every night the stiff little spidery hairs were coming to the surface, and she had to be careful to pluck them off each morning so that no one would suspect she was really a spider. Toward the end she began to smell different too. That was her spider smell coming out.
But still none of us knew. We didn't know a person could be a spider. We didn't know that in the middle of the night she would crawl out of her bed and get down on her fingers and toes and climb up the wall and scuttle across the ceiling just to keep in practice, because she knew she would be transformed into a spider again soon. Now she gets to have her wish. She can be a spider all the time."
---breathe my name, R.A. Nelson, chapter 1, pgs 4-5.
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