Breathless by Lurlene McDaniel

Travis Morrison is a champion diver and swimmer, as well as one of the most popular kids in his school. His future is bright with a college scholarship from diving. Darla, his girlfriend, is one of the hottest girls in school and his best friend Cooper is always there for him, but no one could do much when cancer hits you. In this Fiction book, we follow Travis as he deals with this.

When fooling around in the summer at a lake, Travis decides to dive from a tall cliff that is at least 100 feet tall. As he hobbles up the cliff, he feels a deep pain in his right thigh. At the time he doesn't know that he has a tumor there. When Travis jumps, he breaks the bone in his leg which later has to be amputated. No one is sure how to react, in particular Travis, who seems to withdraw,especially from his parents who seem to
truly not understand what has happened.

At first, there are just minor difficulties and his recovery is bright. As the cancer
spreads though, Travis sees how bad the cancer life is, where you have to stay
hooked to a machine, and doesn't want it for himself. Travis decides that he does
not want to be hooked up to life support, and would much rather die than be
"hooked with false hope." Travis tells Cooper this, and that if it did happen, he
would want Cooper himself to kill him if no one else does.

This book was the most depressing book I have ever read, and I cried for 6 hours
straight after reading this. For at least two weeks I was talking about it with all my
friends. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes drama; this book, I
promise you, will make you cry. It makes me so grateful for the health I have. In
the media today, it has been stressed about so much that people hate it; suicide.
You might just think it's another one of those books that is adding to it. Honestly, it
has a lot about suicide, sure, but I have to say, would you want to be hooked to a
machine, with no hope? Feeling pain, and agony everyday just because you didn't
have the choice? Well, I don't think it's fair.

The only criticism I have for this book is probably the alternating person

views. See, they don't exactly introduce you, so the first few

"chapters"/ names (there are no chapters, just the alternating names of

who you are following at the moment) are very confusing. This book's

lexile is also probably low because of the book size. Honestly though, this

is a tough book for only 165 pages.

Over all though, this was one of my favorite books, because it teaches you a ton of
life lessons about living life while you can.

Grade: A-

Rating: PG-13 (because of real life experiences,

and a scene with Darla and Travis which isn't too bad.)