Product Description

Like father,
like son

Intelligent, popular, handsome, and wealthy, sixteen-year-old Nick Andreas is pretty much perfect -- on the outside, at least. What no one knows -- not even his best friend -- is the terror that Nick faces every time he is alone with his father. Then he and Caitlin fall in love, and Nick thinks his problems are over. Caitlin is the one person who he can confide in. But when things start to spiral out of control, Nick must face the fact that he's gotten more from his father than green eyes and money.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25245 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Released on: 2002-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780064472579
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
It was only a slap. Well, maybe more than one. And maybe Nick used his fist at the end when the anger got out of control. But his girlfriend Caitlin deserved it--hadn't she defied him by singing in the school talent show when he had forbidden her to display herself like that? Even though he'd told her that everybody would laugh at her because she couldn't sing and was a fat slob? Both were lies. Because Caitlin was so beautiful, the only person who understood him. Out of his desperate need for her came all the mean words and the hitting. But now Caitlin's family has procured a restraining order to keep Nick away, and the judge has sentenced him to Mario Ortega's Family Violence class, to sit around every week with six other angry guys who hit their girlfriends. And to write a journal explaining how he got into this mess.

Other teen novels--most strikingly Dreamland by Sarah Dessen--have shown dating violence from the point of view of a young girl trapped in an abusive relationship, but in Breathing Underwater, first-time novelist Alex Flinn tackles the difficult task of making us understand, if not sympathize with, the motivation of a violent young man. The story, like Rob Thomas's stylistically similar Rats Saw God, proceeds in two different time frames: the journal in which Nick relives the course of his tender but stormy love affair with Caitlin and the time after the restraining order, in which a desperate and friendless Nick struggles to understand and overcome his anger. This extraordinarily moving novel is highly relevant reading for all young men in our violence-prone society. (Ages 13 and older) --Patty Campbell

From Publishers Weekly
In what PW called "a gripping tale," a 16-year-old, who is considered perfect by his classmates, suffers a turbulent home life with an abusive father, and he himself follows the pattern of violence. Ages 13-up.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-Key Biscayne High School and south Florida environs provide the affluent setting in which sophomore Nick and his friends carouse. Nick is rich, good looking, an athlete, a talented poet, in love with beautiful Caitlin-and he is an insecure, manipulative individual being raised by a violent and abusive father. The story opens as Caitlin is awarded the protection of a restraining order against Nick, and the plot unfolds along two streams. Regular font is "real time"-January 5th through September 2nd-while the "handwritten" font flashes back to reveal the stages by which Nick's first love twists inexorably into abuse. His former friends turn against him, he attends court-ordered group counseling sessions with a bunch of abusers he sees as losers, and his dad still beats him. The one member of the group he bonds with, Leo, withdraws when he is able to talk his girlfriend into dropping her charges. Nick gradually begins to perceive the vile depths to which he had fallen by observing Leo's obsessive behavior toward Neysa, which culminates when Leo murders her and commits suicide. Nick learns important lessons about being a man, responsibility, self-control, and trust. He successfully confronts his father and, in the final journal entry, begins his junior year by reestablishing contact with his former best friend. An open and honest portrayal of an all-too-common problem.-Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A COMPELLING READING OF AN IMPORTANT STORY
Film and Broadway actor Jon Cryer gives compelling reading to this candid story of a teenager apparently fated to visit upon others the physical violence he has endured.

The setting is sunny, affluent South Florida where to his classmates at Biscayne High School 16-tear-old Nick Andreas appears to have it all. His family is well to do; he's a top athlete and student. The person in his lucky-me armor is his father's hair trigger temper.

Caitlin, Nick's girl, is everything he had hoped for - beautiful, gifted and wild about him. That is, until Nick hits her. She seeks a restraining order against him, and he must attend group counseling. He has lost his reputation, his friends, and his girl.

Once in counseling Nick is forced to turn an objective eye on fellow abusers and observe not only the pain they have inflicted upon others but the harm they have done to themselves. He must stand alone to learn responsibility and the true meaning of manhood.

Gratefully, the author is honest and doesn't make Nick's journey an easy one with a made in Hollywood ending.

- Gail Cooke

Uncomfortable subject handled well
It's hard reading a book where the main character is unlikeable, and Nick is most definitely unlikeable. Although the first person narrative makes it a little easier to accept Nick. Flinn has done a good job of not only showing what an abusive relationship is and how it fuels itself (controlling behavior from insecurities preying on someone elses insecurities, reinforced by an I'll do anything if you don't hurt me again response -- to simplify it way too much). But more impressive, she has shown how someone can grow and start to move on -- convincingly. This isn't a "it's for teens so I have to find a silver lining" type ending. Nick has a long way to go at the end of the book. Everything isn't magically better, but there is a plan.

Also Flinn's details, events, background stories of the characters clearly come from her experiences working with people in similar situations. Even her wildest story -- Leo becoming a puppet abuser (i.e. his father is pulling the strings) is very believable, at least to me, because I know someone whose father made him do horrible, abusive things to his sister.

Painful, yet healing book to read, about something that both teens and adults need to be aware of.

A ...Book of Note
This is an exceptionally compassionate, yet realistic story of one young man's unconscious choice to follow in his father's footsteps, and the consequences it has on his life. A series of physical outbursts against his girlfriend (not to mention ongoing verbal assault) land Nick in court, and he finds himself without the support of family or friends. With the help of a counseling program, and a journal assignment from the judge, Nick tries to figure out how he became a person he neither likes nor understands. Given its subject matter, any success Breathing Underwater achieves almost assures that controversy will follow. That said, it is my opinion that it should be mandatory reading at Junior High level, and stacks of copies should be donated to crisis centers, women's shelters, and child abuse prevention programs everywhere.