Breathe My Name

by R.A. Nelson

"I need to see you. Please come right away.

We have to finish."

Frances Robinson is in high school now. She lives a quiet, suburban life, far from her horrifying past. When she was a child, her birthmother smothered her three sisters. Through pure luck, Frances survived. Now her mother has just been released from prison . . . and she wants to see Frances.

A new boy at school called Nix charms Frances. Together, Nix and Frances embark on a clandestine journey to visit Frances' mother: to confront the monster in its lair. This trip will help Frances at last find peace or die trying. But no matter what, Frances will discover just what it means to finish.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Romance, Teen

314 pages, Hardcover

First published November 8, 2007

About the author

R.A. Nelson's work was selected as a finalist for National Public Radio's list of the "Best Young Adult Fiction Ever Written." He was chosen a Horn Book Newcomer and his books have been nominated to the YALSA Best Books for Young Adults list and recognized by the Parents' Choice Awards, the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list, Booksense Kid Picks, the Miami Herald Best Books of the Year, teenreads.com Best Books of the year, and others. Nelson is a recipient of NASA's prestigious Silver Snoopy Award for "outstanding support provided to the Space Shuttle program." Teach Me has been optioned by Protagonist Films for a feature film. His website is http://www.ranelsonbooks.com/

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well... At first I was pretty into this book. It deals with a teen who was the only surviving sister of infanticide. Her mother suffocated her 3 younger sisters in a post partum, isolated, depressed situation. I think many aspects of how she may feel growing up, and why this could have possibly happened is interesting. I also feel like many of the characters were fairly well flushed out. So why the 2? Towards the end of the book the author throws in what i felt was a totally superfluous plot twist in which a freaky obsessive guy tries to set up the main character. The whole thing is completely unrealistic and silly and does not add to the plot at all, at least in my humble opinion.

P.S. everyone else seems to love it so maybe don't trust me ;)

[Rachel Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated this YA novel, which has won a number of awards which it did not deserve. Hate. Hate. Hate. Let me tell you why!

It opens with a creepily evocative piece of writing from the point of view of a child, Shine, living with her three younger sisters and their psychotic mother, who thinks she's the queen of a fantasyland called Fireless.

Then it switches to the same child, now a teenager named Frances, who is living with her adoptive parents in Alabama. Her birth mother and sisters are nowhere around. Anyone who follows the news can instantly figure out what happened, though Nelson doesn't reveal it until about a third of the way into the book. Frances seems reasonably well-adjusted, though with some residual PTSD.

She falls for the new boy at school, Nix, who is from New Orleans and is Quirky with a capital Q. He has an autistic brother and is great with the school's developmentally disabled student and takes her to a furniture store for a date and is just fine that everyone thinks he's weird because of all the great things he does for his autistic brother and is generally a saint. I hated him. Especially when he kept dropping "Mammy Ida," his Creole nanny, into the conversation. He's a manic pixie dream guy, and the trope is no less annoying when it's gender-flipped.

Frances gets a message via a lawyer from her birth mother, now in a halfway house for murderers found not guilty by reason of insanity, to come see her. So she and Nix go on a road trip into her past.

Why I hated this book:

1. I have a problem with the use of autistic people as devices to show how wonderful neurotypical people are for being nice to them. If the autistic brother was a real character, that would be different, but he isn't. He's just there to show how awesome Nix is.

Frances has a climactic realization that all people are damaged and broken, from the brother to her mother to her and Nix. That does not work at all. If her PTSD was severe enough to ever make anyone think she's scary or different or Other in any way, that could have worked... but it isn't.

2. Nix really rubbed me the wrong way. I think Nelson tried too hard to make me love him.

3. The climax was possibly the stupidest thing I've read all year. If the book had been a thriller, it still would have been stupid. But at least it would have been less jarring. A mainstream novel should not climax with the discovery that...

...the letter from her Mom was faked by the "lawyer," whose daughter died, in an unrelated incident, the same day that Frances' sisters did. Furious that a woman killed her own daughters when he would have saved his if he could, the "lawyer" became obsessed with the idea that Frances should enact justice on her mother. He got a job at the halfway house and waited nine years to write the fake letter luring Frances to the halfway house in the hope that she would murder her mother. When she doesn't, he tries to strangle Frances. Her psychotic mother smashes his head in and kills him. Frances goes off with Nix and burns down her abandoned childhood home.

The end!

[Khristina Chess · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a weird and utterly hypnotic novel!

Frances Robinson is adopted. She has two loving, if overprotective, parents. When she was seven, her biological mother murdered her three younger sisters and almost succeeded in killing Frances too.

The premise of this book is so fascinating. What happened? Gosh! The pages turn at breakneck speed with this novel. And right from the beginning, there is a new boy at school, and Frances goes on a road trip with him to see her biological mother. This seems so random and out of character for Frances. But is it?

So many things about what happened seemed really over-the-top, especially in the second half of the book, but I could not put this book down. From the first chapter, I was all in. I had to meet this woman who could murder her own children and see how this situation would be resolved.

This isn’t a “heartwarming” YA book about adoption, but it’s definitely worth reading.

[Rosanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book was well written, moving at times, and had a really sweet love story, but the plot twist at the end really made me dislike this book overall.

It felt like a bad episode of one of those detective/crime-scene shows, with an out-of-the-blue villain that was totally unnecessary. Given the gravity of the subject matter of this book, why was it necessary to add this plot twist? There are plenty of significant issues to explore with respect to Frances and her healing that got skimmed over in favour of this plot point. Really disappointing, to me it felt like a cheap trick, as if the author felt the need to add some 'action' to make it more flashy.

I also thought Frances' adoptive parents behavior was a bit over the top, locking her away was not going to help her. I would have expected people who were given the opportunity to adopt someone who had been through what Frances had to have greater emotional intelligence. I actually felt most of the adults were characterized very poorly.

[Celia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up off the YA shelves at the library because of the cover (I love the title written in condensation), and then because of the "my mother killed all my siblings except for me and she's now in a mental hospital" storyline. Because I find those news stories about mothers who kill their children horrifically fascinating.

Breathe My Name wasn't bad - when her mother's released from prison and leaves her a mysterious message, Frances and the new guy at her school, Nix, head off to find her. The ending is fairly unbelievable, but I quite liked Frances, her anxious adopted family, and her memories of her mother's insanity. [It's never quite clear what's wrong with her mother - the birth of her children and her isolation is mentioned, implying post-natal depression, but she also says voices speak to her. So, I'm going with insanity as a nice general term.]

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stunning. Begs the question- how do you begin to recover from a shattering tragedy, the kind that makes national news and makes your name a household word. I loved the quirky, funny male character: he saved the book from being too sad and gave it hope. Very well-written. The main character was really flat with not much personality for most of the book, but that was by design. However, it would have been nice to have a few more scenes of her finding herself before the book ended. Also, the final suspense was surprising, satisfying, but not entirely convincing. Still, a very talented writer and one to watch.

[Carrie Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tonight I finished this book. I enjoyed the book because it supplied me with a struggle between an average girl and herself while also adding a hint of love story. I recommend "Breathe My Name" to those who love a good conflict with high stakes. Also to those who like a good love story. The book kept my interested the entire time I was reading and I found myself dying to know what would happen next. In this story, the main character, Frances, lives a normal life as a junior in high school. A perfect family, a perfect house, and a perfect life. But she soon discovers she must confront her gross past. Eleven years before, she was adopted into the family she was in, but the reason why still haunts her. When she was little, Frances has 3 other sisters. She lived with her birth mother and birth father in a small country house. Her mother would imagine a world, Fireless, and the children would join her on adventures as they explored the forest around them and the creeks. But soon, her birth mother became sick. Sick as in crazy. She started to see black all the time and felt the need to protect her children. She needed to get them away from the world. She decided to take them to "Fireless". On an average day she called each child up to her bedroom one at a time. Once there, she would tell them where they were going and then before they could run, she smothered them with a pillow, murdering her children. Only Frances survived. Her birth mother was then placed in jail and then in a mental facility. Eleven years later, Frances receives a visit from a lawyer, saying that her mother is soon to be released from the psychiatric facility because she was "responding well" and was "recovering". She also sent a letter to Frances through this lawyer. It read, "I need to see you. Please come right away. We have to finish." Feeling the need to confront her mother, she heads off to find her birth mother with her boyfriend, Nix. Overall I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone.

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed by Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky" for TeensReadToo.com

Frances Robinson's story has a lot in common with several news stories in recent years. Eleven years ago, her biological mother smothered her three younger sisters, and if it hadn't been for the arrival of a total stranger, Frances might have been next.

BREATHE MY NAME picks up when Frances is eighteen and a junior in high school. She lives with her loving adoptive parents in a nice home in a nice town. She is relatively happy, but things are about to change.

First, Frances meets Nix, a new student who just moved from New Orleans. He's a bit different but strangely fascinating. As lab partners, they begin to get to know each other and share stories. But there's a story Frances can't seem to share - the story of her mother and her sisters. How do you tell someone you care about something like that?

The other change for Frances comes in the form of a letter delivered by a special messenger. It appears to be from her mother, who has been locked up for the past eleven years. She is about to be released to a group home and seems to be requesting to meet with Frances.

R. A. Nelson's BREATHE MY NAME tells the amazing story of a young girl trying to come to grips with her past and decide how to move on with the future. Readers will find themselves pulled into the lives on the pages and carried along the sometimes frightening and bumpy ride as Frances takes control of her own destiny. This book is well worth reading.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

R. A. Nelson’s work Breathe My Name is a sensible work of fiction that will tug at your heart and draw you in. Along with a recent work, Teach Me, he follows a girl in her troubles to overcome her past and move toward forgetting her mother. With every other chapter switching from Frances’ life when she was seven to the present with her as a junior in High School, it keeps you active in the story line. I enjoyed her protective parents and her childish innocence, or so she would seem.
As life seems to be getting along, every moment thoughts of what happened occur. Most of the time I was drawn in by Frances relationship with Nix and her need to open up to him. The irony of it all is revealed as a creepy lawyer comes forward, R. C. Carruthers. Throughout, I was impressed how the past seemed to coincide with the present, never left you confused as to what was happening. With the help of her best friend, Ann Mirette, and Nix, Frances fights her way to finish what needs to be finished with her mentally ill mother.
“My name isn’t Frances” is a big part of this book. Her name is actually Francine Jelks instead of Frances Robinson and her parents aren’t really her own, Afton Jelks is. Breathe My Name reflects how Frances cannot forgive what has been done and it is very relatable.
Overall, the enjoyment rating for me is high but unless you like girlish moments of joy or sadness then you might want to slowly back away. This book is most definitely for teens with a need for a happy ending.

[Eden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frances is haunted by her past. When she was small she lived with her mother and small sisters whom she helped cared for. Her mother created a new, magical world that she raised her children around. Frances' father was always away and that's why what happened was such a miracle: Frances' mother took each one of her kids, one by one, up to her bedroom and smothered them. Frances was th elast one and only one to survive because someone walked in.

Now 18, she is adopted an still in school. She is short, smart, and at first seems like she's not attracted to anything. Then Nix comes to her happy little town from New Orleans and they start to get close. SHe gets a mysterious letter from her mother, who's about to be released from jail.

When Frances can finally reveal her secret to Nix, they journey together to go see Frances' mother in a mental institution. Frances isn;t exactly sure what she's looking for or what she wants to find, but she does, deep-down want to know why and how her mother could want to kill her kids and her father couldn't stop it.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 for the pure nostalgia of it all. So coming back to this book years and years after reading it I can now see it’s not free if its problems but it’s a thrilling story & I can see why young teenage me really liked it

[A.lam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breathe My Name by R.A. Nelson is an intriguing tale that keeps you reading. Nelson develops character and theme with excruciating detail, creating a unique reading experience.His use of foreshadowing added an essential component of suspense in the already gripping tale. To appreciate the story, we have to realize that as much as it talks about extremities, it also is reflective of the haunting yet heart-warming details of life. Nelson adds in small, almost undetectable moments of human frailty and tidbits of normality that strikes a note in the reader. This causes a resonating effect and causes the audience, suspecting or otherwise, to fall in love with all aspects of the story.

The themes of love and acceptance are laced into the novel with every word. R.A. Nelson takes care in injecting love into the imagery and into the characters to grow and develop this concept. We as the audience get the full, haunting power of love and of the bond between family members in this lasting tale. Through all odds, even amidst darkness, death and insanity, a family was reconciled in a moment of brokenness and fragility. This resonates so well with our own world, where families are in need of reconciliation and true love.

Like some other reviews have said before, this story had a lacking ending. However I feel that the ending, however rushed and dry, leaves the reader to imagine and fill in the blanks themselves.The emotions, as others mention, are unbridled and beautiful and very real. They reflect the emotions felt by us all.

Breathe My Name is a gripping novel that will drown you in emotion and thought. Sensitive and beautiful, R.A. Nelson has created not only a story, but a piece of art reflecting love at its best. Torn families are mended and new relationships are made. However, truth remains. The love in the blood of a mother and child will be the purest love in the world. R.A. Nelson has created a powerful novel from which we can all learn from and love. Truly a masterpiece, literature at it’s best.

[Gorfo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Breathe My Name didn't click for me. It has all the elements that generally interest a reader, a shy, messed up teenaged girl,and a beautiful teenage boy who by some trick of fate somehow fall into each other's lives and click, and of course the typical boisterous best friend. However, Frances is not the typical troubled teenager, her name isn't even Frances. But which name do you want to know? Do you want to know her real name? Francine Jelks. Or her secret name? Shine. When Frances was a little girl she spent her time with her eccentric mother and sisters, frolicking in the made-up world of Fireless. However, somewhere along the way, the line between reality and make-believe blurs for France's mother, and Fireless becomes a real place, a place she lives in 24/7, 7 days a week.

The book picks up almost eleven later, in a quiet Alabama town where everything is real, and thoughts of monsters and faraway places like Fireless don't exist for most people, however Frances still thinks about Fireless everyday and when a call from her mother's lawyer arrives, the memories of THAT day and all the days before quickly resurface. Francine takes a journey to come to terms with herself, and her mother, and to finish what was started in Fireless.

So I feel like I should have loved this book. But the pacing was off, it was too psychological, too slow, nothing much happened for almost the first 200 pages. Also I don't like when people talk about breathing (and boy was it a subject of interest in this book) because then you think about it too much and then suddenly you realize you're not breathing and it just turns into a big panicky mess. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anybody but if you see it and have nothing better to read, I wouldn't tell you not to read it either.

[Lizzy Abhold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure I was going to like this book at first but after I started it, it was amazing. This is the story of a girl who seems to have a perfect life, but her past isn't as perfect as she seems. She has a terrible secret; one that she can never get away from. On her first day of school, she meets a boy named Nix that shows her she doesn't have to be scared of her past anymore. They go on a long journey that gives her the answers she's been looking for. This book has its secrets that definitely take it the extra mile. I'd recommend this book to teen girls and up because it has some more mature parts.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

A haunting portrayal of what it is to live with a truly terrible event. The main character's mother killed her sisters and tried to kill her when she was little. Suddenly, she hears that her mother is being released from the mental institute she was sentenced to.
In the midst of the main tragedy that takes place, the main character goes through a very real and convincing first teenage love that. While the beginning was solid, the end felt forced and confused. Something so terrible could never wrap up so neatly.

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

chills! realistic fiction and psychological thriller. great secondary characters. of this author's books I prefer Teach Me but this had its moments, too. fantastic premise. ending a little flat and dissatifying. but otherwise a good read.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book back in 6th grade and remembered loving it so I had to reread it! Still just as good

[Zev · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this ten years ago or something. I'd previously read "Teach Me," about a high school teacher preying on one of his students but it's from her POV and portrayed as totes okay guys, since she turns eighteen. I didn't make the connection that the two works were written by the same author at all, and was surprised when I figured it out, all those years ago. I was surprised all over again when I saw it now, on my goodreads feed. "Oh, that book. Oh, and it's that author? Hm. Gonna read it!" I was glued to the book back then, and I thought it was a great portrayal of all the issues it presented. Now...I have a lot more life experience and am a more critical reader. On second read, all these years later, this book is boring and melodramatic as shit. The characters are woefully underdeveloped, there's little to no plot, the flashbacks are useless and take up half the novel, Nelson can't convincingly write children, and there's a nonverbal autistic student in here for no reason. This is a vague character study. It doesn't even approach thriller. One line that was repeated was, "Well, you know Nix." Well, good for you, because I, the reader, do not, so I have no idea why he does things. But you do, so can you explain to me? No. Okay, that's your choice. Character relationships are not earned. There's no connection between anyone. Nelson just dumps quotes and references to off-page stuff in our laps and expects us to buy it. It's not even insta-love, because THERE IS NOTHING SHOWING THAT. NOT EVEN INSTA-LOVE BECAUSE THERE'S NOTHINGGGG. Had to state it twice, since it's true and anyway, this book -loves- stating things multiple times like it somehow showed it all beforehand. There's no showing, barely any telling, and I was unhappy.

This book purports to tackle the serious issue of a rare, severe, and severely misunderstood mental illness: post-partum psychosis. The teen's mother has it, and has been sick for a very long time. Originally I called bullshit, but I checked out a memoir from a woman who has it, too. The book is called "Inferno" by Catherine Cho and it explains the disease much more thoroughly. The memoir treats such a serious issue with fucking respect, and it's not a cheap, stupid plot device in an already boring book that is about nothing. No. Someone who -actually- experienced this illness talks at length about her family, her husband, his family, their backgrounds, HER CHILD, and how the illness manifested. She talks a lot about the mental hospital she's in long-term. I looked up the book and got into an interview that talked about her future. I was fascinated and felt vicariously hopeful.

This book has NONE of that. Take out the psychosis mom in this book, and just say, "my siblings died in a car accident where my mom was drunk," and this would already be a much better, more interesting, more realistic, more respectful fictional account. Mental illness is not a thriller plot point, Nelson, you moron. It's a very real issue that affects a lot of different people in a lot of different ways. The only thing this book got semi-right was that the psychotic mom was in a halfway house but--to still need to be in a halfway house ten years after murdering three toddlers? Do her psychiatrists just not care? Did I miss something? OH WAIT, NELSON LIKELY DIDN'T DO ANY RESEARCH. Seriously, dude. Sit down with psychiatrists, read forums...visit a hospital if you need to if you're going to write about something like this! Skip this book and read Catherine Cho's memoir instead.

[Alice LeFae · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frances Robinson is Not Like Other Girls. For one thing, she's painfully quiet. For another, her mother tried to murder her when she was seven.

Breathe My Name comes so close to being a good book and falls short in its inability to settle on a motif. Many interesting elements are presented throughout the book with huge potential for a payoff, but instead of reincorporating these elements the author drops them entirely. A lot of these elements pertain to character growth- does Frances get better at asserting herself? No. Does she learn to have more faith in herself? Possibly, but again, arguably, no. Does she forgive her mother, even though it doesn't feel entirely earned? Unfortunately, yes.

Loose plot threads aside, the romantic aspect of the book also leaves a lot to be desired. I would argue that this would have been a much more compelling read altogether if, instead of going on a possibly deadly road trip to confront her insane mother with a boy she only just started dating, Frances instead went on this road trip with her incredibly patient and selfless best friend, Ann Mirette. Instead, she bonds with new boyfriend Nix through shared trauma and exposing him to all the nitty-gritty details of her deep dark past. Hey, Frances, you've only known him for like a month.

Still, Breathe My Name is not without its charm. Despite a few poorly structured sentences which inhibit the flow of the story, there are several chapters that are quite beautifully and evocatively written.

Ultimately, this book has a promising concept but could use a few more rounds of rewrites.

[Elke]

"Ich muss dich sehen. Bitte komm sofort. Wir müssen es zu Ende bringen." Drei Sätze, die wie ein Blitz in Frances’ Leben einschlagen. Drei Sätze, unterzeichnet von ihrer leiblichen Mutter, die sie vor elf Jahren das letzte Mal sah. Als das unaussprechlich Schreckliche geschah. Als Frances ihre Schwestern verlor. Frances weiß, dass sie sich ihrer Vergangenheit stellen muss. Sie weiß nicht, dass dieser Weg geradewegs durch die Hölle führt.

[Tadgh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so memorable I had to create a goodreads account to find it in the "What's the Name of That Book?" group! Here's everything I remembered (SPOILERS)

This book has stayed with me throughout the years, and I love it.

[Brianne · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book was not that good. The book was pretty boring and made no sense most of it. I was confused whether there were flashbacks or not in the book. I was also confused on what the main characters name was until I was at least 100 pages into the book.

[Aurora Dimitre · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was... fine? I do understand where other readers are coming from, where they say Nix is very Manic Pixie Dream Boy, and I get that, but he was fun anyway... it was enjoyable but a little sophomoric.

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

What? Preposterous preposterous preposterous ending!

Started out pretty good...then some microaggressions (What is a Hindu accent afterall? And Nix drops many more) & then spun out into an inane "plot twist."

Quick & quacky YA read
Absurd & bad
Would not read again

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember this book pretty briefly. It took me a while to start it and it caught my attention mid way through to the end. I wouldn't say it was the best read but I'm pretty sure I only half paid attention to it while I was reading it on my lunch breaks at my internship. Might need to re-read it!

[Raul Gonzales · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good. Frances’s story is sad, flipping between her tough childhood and her life now kept me flipping pages. Her bond with Nix is sweet and keeps things moving. The writing’s great, but it slows down a bit and the ending could have been better. Still, it’s a solid read!

[River · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. It felt a bit rushed at the end though. It’s definitely a quick and easy read.

[*Weebles* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely amazing book!!! Loved it.

[Eva David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why would Mr.Carl choose to kill Francine after his whole lecture about justice????

[Manda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because the flash backs got annoying frequent and dull.