Breathless by Lurlene McDaniel

[description from Amazon]

What is the toughest request anyone can be asked to fulfill?

Travis Morrison is a champion diver and one of the most popular kids at school. On the first day of summer vacation, while boating on the lake with his friends, Travis attempts a silly stunt dive that goes wrong. He fears he has broken his leg. Instead, his trip to the hospital reveals he has a rare form of cancer, and to save him, the doctors tell his parents they must amputate. In an instant, Travis’s life and the lives of everyone around him are forever changed.

Travis is determined that he and only he should decide the course of his life. He has a plan, but he can’t carry it out alone. Will he convince one of his friends to fulfill his most important request?

Review:

This is my first Lurlene McDaniel book, and I have to say that I'm not overly impressed. I have heard that Lurlene books rock, but I wasn't that impressed with this one. It's most likely just this book that I wasn't impressed with, but I was expecting more.

It's a really quick book. Quick because it doesn't take long to read, and everything happens so fast. Because the book is so short, there's not much time to build up the events or really have time to process them. Travis jumps off the cliff right at the beginning of the book, and after that it's decision after event after decision after event. The subject matter- euthanasia- is thought-provoking and interesting to discuss, but there's so much quickly going on that it's hard to think about it until the end.

I usually like multiple POV in books, but because there were four points of view in this already short book, I felt that it was a lot to handle. The characters usually don't speak for more than five or six pages at a time, so there's constant back and forth. It's nice to see the characters differing perspectives on Travis's problems and decisions, but there's just a lot to take in. I also don't think the first person narrative it helped to develop the characters that much. The characterization was done well enough so that the characters are believable, but not entirely realistic. They change throughout the book, but it's not that obvious or that much.

My thoughts on this book can be summed up in one word: ok. Breathless was interesting and thought provoking, but it could have been a lot better.

6.5/10

Links: Lurlene's website

Delacorte/Hardcover/$10.99/Amazon/B&N/Borders/IndieBound