Try Not to Breathe

Starred review from December 12, 2011
In her second novel, Hubbard (The Secret Year) compellingly portrays the quiet anguish of “after.” Sixteen-year-old Ryan has endured too much in a year—a new school, mono, romantic rejection, and a suicidal gesture that sends him to a psychiatric facility. Now he is coping with the reality that there is no tidy closure to these events, much less a happy ending. He has to go back to school, to the same parents, and to adolescence, and nothing has gotten easier while he’s been gone. His only friends are the ones he made in the hospital, and the “Patterson Honesty” they communicated with there has given way to more socially palatable half-lies. The kids at school, meanwhile, just sneak glances at him or mock him as “creepy.” Then he befriends Nicki—younger, bolder, and persistent—who demands that Ryan put into words what he has gone through, and everything starts to change. Hubbard is outstandingly successful at capturing the frustration of not having the words, especially in a culture that does not encourage boys to express what Ryan is feeling. Ages 14–up. Agent: Curtis Brown.

Starred review from December 1, 2011
Evocative symbols, carefully drawn details and hints of romance enrich a spare, redemptive character study. Home from a stay at Patterson Hospital following a suicide attempt, Ryan hikes to a powerful waterfall each morning to stand under the crushing spray. Nicki, the younger sister of a boy Ryan knows from school, sees him there one day in August and strikes up a conversation. For the first time, Ryan finds himself opening up to someone besides the two Patterson friends he now talks to by phone and online. As trust, familiarity and perhaps attraction build between the two, Ryan and Nicki reveal pieces of their personal histories, though each still harbors secrets. Defying both sensationalism and cliché, the narrative explores Ryan's suicide attempt and its aftermath with what Ryan calls "Patterson Honesty: the truth, stripped down of all formalities, all politeness." Although much is made of understanding the past--the shame and numbness that led to Ryan's attempt, the unknowable reasons behind Nicki's father's completed suicide--the story is also about moving forward: Can intimacies built inside a place like Patterson survive outside? How can the parents of a teen who attempts suicide trust their child again? What can we ever truly know about ourselves and each other? Haunting, hopeful and masterfully crafted. (Fiction. 14 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2012

Gr 9 Up-A family move; a bout with mono; and the harsh, insensitive words of a classmate push a 16-year-old loner to the extreme. It's the summer after his suicide attempt and Ryan is fresh out of a stint at a psychiatric hospital. He hangs out in the woods, often under a waterfall where the cold shock and the force of the water bring relief. He develops a relationship with Nicki, a free-spirited girl with secrets of her own, who is drawn to Ryan because she believes he can help her understand her father's suicide years earlier. Ryan's story is related in the first person, and Hubbard has a genuine knack for getting inside the mind of an angst-filled teen. Flashbacks reveal the hurt, self-loathing, and anguish that caused him to try to end his life. Ryan, Nicki, Ryan's friends from the hospital, and his mom are all believable characters with raw emotions that are palpable. The affecting story addresses issues of real concern without being maudlin. It is well paced and includes a bit of a twist near the end. This poignant novel about a sensitive teen trying to find his spot in the world will definitely find a YA readership. Suggest it to those who loved Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why (Penguin, 2007).-Patricia N. McClune, Conestoga Valley High School, Lancaster, PA

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2012
Grades 9-12 Just out of a mental hospital after attempting suicide, Ryan, 16, feels tense at home with his obsessive mom and distant dad, and at school he is known as the creepy kid who'd tried to kill himself and spent time in the loony bin. He speaks online to his only friends, Jake and Val, with whom he bonded in the hospital, but he keeps secrets even from them. Then he meets Nicki, and they hang out and start a romance. She is haunted by her father's suicide, and she looks to Ryan to help her try to understand why her dad made the decision he did. Can they help each other? Is she just being nice? With suicide at the front and center of the story, this is a book for group discussion, but even with the strong messages, readers will be caught by Ryan's frank, first-person narrative and the fast, tense dialogue that confronts the loneliness, confusion, guilt, and pain of how it feels to be the local loser.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)