Reason to Breathe and Barely Breathing by Rebecca Donovan

I read these books almost a year ago. I loved them and decided to reread. Reading is sometimes my therapy. I read to find comfort, be entertained, laugh , and love. Reason to Breathe is a story that evokes so much emotion from me. I often find myself pausing while reading, almost having flashbacks to my own personal hell. Rebecca Donovan does such an amazing job of capturing what its like, the shame someone has when her family is broken, there is guilt, insecurities and embarrassment that go along with a troubled home life. Although my life was no where near the terror of Emma's, it was bad. I didnt tell. This book gives the pain a voice. In Reason to Breathe you follow a love story but you also are watching a girl decide if she is enough to love, and somewhere I think she starts to love herself. This book is so close to me, I had a Sara, and I had an Anna. Finding solace in my friends and the normalcy of thier lives is what got me though. They new some of my pain but I could never share it all. BARELY BREATHING Emma is trying desperatly to live and get over her pain. Again in this book Rebecca Donovan connects to such raw emotions. She tells a story about blocking out the bad things and not wanting to remember because remembering hurts to much. I have such few memmories from ten and under. Blocking out trying to hide the pain to those around you with a neverending smile is something I learned. I LOVE THESE STORIES! Thank you to Rebecca Donovan for connecting this story to so many people. As I read through this book for the second time it was so easy for me to have empathy but also theraputic in a way that I could look back, see some mistakes and maybe still after all of these years see some things that may still be a little broken, but perhaps thats the beauty of this story because maybe as I was reading and having some self reflection, maybe just a little of that healed. If you havent read these books yet, they have some heavy topics, but there is also a lot of love and life. THESE ARE TWO GREAT READS!