Wednesday, July 23, 2008

A Haunting Tale

Just finished Breathe, one of this year's Lone Star picks. Not too impressed. Firstly, I suppose I should admit that I'm not a fan of the horror genre. YA horror rarely delivers. But I have other critiques. The Ghost Mother character came off as bizarre. The motivation for her actions just wasn't strong enough. I might have bought it if the author had tried to portray her as a mentally unstable person, like Misery, but this was not the case. The whole business with the Nightmare Passage was just weird and seemed like too much, especially since it was introduced more than halfway through. Probably could have just left that out altogether. I suppose that made the main character's dealings with the departed a positive experience, but here again, I just didn't buy it. Speaking of the boy, what happened to his weird mannerism? Hmmmm, I guess that just wasn't important once he he got to know the ghosts, huh? Now the asthma condotion of the protagonist was a new twist that I thought worked well in the story. Kids might be able to relate to that aspect or find it at least enlightening. But I don't see anything spectacular about this book at all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I appreciate your review---don't think that I will read this book even though it is a Lone Star pick.
Sherry M.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your detailed review. This will be a very good book to read, especially in October.