A Summer Read...

Update: I just ordered this off abebooks.com for 1 buck, yes 1 buck + shipping for a grand total of $4.89. And guess what, it's brand new and not used. Thought I'd give ya the link. Type in Jun9 in the coupon code section and save yourself 10 cents darlings.


I know some of you have been writing posts about summer reads. Here's a recommendation from moi=) This book was featured in a fashion magazine a few years ago. That is how I came about finding it. It was probably Cosmopolitan or Glamour. I actually loaned this to a friend and never got it back; because, she loved it and loaned it to someone else. You get the gist. However, I got to thinking about this book again and plan on ordering it on Amazon to reread this Summer. The name of the book is Breathe by Anne-Sophie Brasme. Don't worry, it's been translated from French to English for you!

courtesy of http://www.curledup.com/breatheb.htm

"Barely out of childhood, I had already committed the irreparable.' Beautifully and simply written with an astonishing maturity, this first novel narrates the story of nineteen-year-old Charlene Boher. Charlene recounts her past from her prison cell, a past which had begun banally enough - a great friendship between herself and Sarah. Charlene, a solitary, unpopular, tortured and breathless adolescent had been 'rescued' by Sarah and they'd developed an intense friendship. However, when Charlene falls in love with Maxime, the jealous Sarah begins to test and provoke her, to humiliate her in public and reproach her persistently - until she can take it no longer, with disastrous and shocking consequences. This is a very frank and convincing account of a possessive, ambiguous and abusive friendship."

"Stories of obsession can be boring--all that self-absorption becomes repetitive--but this spare, poignant first novel, translated from the French, is so exquisitely written that you read it in one breathless rush. The suspense is not about what happens. You know from the first chapter that the narrator is a murderer. Sleepless in prison, Charlene, 19, has no regrets about what she did two years ago. In the walls of her cell, she remembers the break with her family (suddenly "no more than a squalid bunch of strangers"), her loneliness, her ecstatic bonding with charismatic Sarah at their elite high school. Then Sarah drops Charlene, bullies her, treats her as a pet, and worse of all, ignores her. Charlene has a brief love affair with a kind, handsome guy, and she almost becomes an ordinary teen, able to love without hatred and obsession, until Sarah beckons, and Charlene is trapped again. The writer is just 20, and her unsettling story brings very close the passionate intensity of teenage friendship and betrayal." Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Ok, it sounds sort of dark and morbid of sorts, but this book is really good. It's not very long and would be a great summer read. At times, you can definitely sympathize with Charlene; because, we've all been bullied at least once in our lives by someone. We've all at one point in time or another wanted to be in the "cool" click and wanted nothing more than acceptance. You could probably read it in its entirety during a lay out session pool side=) Do y'all have any suggestions for some good poolside reading???