[Book Review] Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn

Summary (from Amazon):
To his friends, popular and handsome sixteen-year-old Nick Andreas has led a charmed life. But the guys in Nick's anger management class know differently. So does his ex-girlfriend Caitlin. Now it looks like the only person who doesn't realize how far from perfect Nick's life has become is Nick himself.

I really love Alex Flinn’s fairytale stories and since I was going to a signing of hers a couple of months ago, I went out and bought most of her books. It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve finished Breathing Underwater, but the main ideas are still in my head.

I should start off with saying that this book took me nearly a month to read. Not because it wasn’t good, but because this wasn’t a type of book I was used to reading. Although I’ve read several of her books and because of her I am now used to reading from as a boy’s point of view, I never found myself comfortable with the whole abuse thing. Abuse isn’t really something that I had to go through so maybe that’s the reason. I’m sure a girl with an abusive boyfriend or a boy with an angry, bitter father has a completely different view. With the abuse being taken out of the equation, there leaves the characters and storyline.    

Normally when reading a book, there’s typically one or two characters that I love no matter what. This book is different, but in a good way because it made me like every single character (minus Nick’s dad) at one point.

When it came to Nick, I felt sorry for him because of what his father put him through. Yet I wanted to knock some sense into him with his rudeness towards Caitlin. As for Caitlin, I felt bad for her because she clearly didn’t realize something was wrong with her relationship until it was too late. But she was also not opened to listening to Nick. I really liked Tom in the flashbacks/journal entries, but he was too a jerk when it came to his relationship with Nick.

As for the storyline, I would have liked to see some more stuff happen in the present time. These seemed to be a lot of stuff going on in the journal entries so I guess that makes up for it. Also, I would have liked to see a better conclude the Nick/Caitlin relationship, but I guess that’s what the book sequel (which is after Breathing Underwater and told in Caitlin’s point of view) Diva is for. Hoping to read that book and get a review up soon.

3 out of 5 for Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn.