Customer Reviews

Breathe: A Ghost Story (Exceptional Reading & Language Arts Titles for Intermediate Grades)

5 star:		(5)
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3 star:		(1)
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My ten-year-old daughter and I read this book together. She proclaimed "Breathe" an awesome book and raved to all her friends and teachers alike. Once we had started reading this book we could not stop until forced to go to bed. It was suspenseful, well written and full of descriptive language. The author made you feel for each of the characters, even the ghost mother, who we found ourselves loathing yet pitying at times. Be warned, for sensitive readers some parts may be too intense. This is a ghost story, so be prepared to be a little frightened. There are references to death and a nether world called the Nightmare Passage which is a pretty spooky place. We would recommend this book to older children and adults who like suspense and a book that is nearly impossible to put down.

Breathe, a ghost story, by McNish is one of the few books I've read that has really caught my attention. I was interested in the book from the first page to the last.
One of the things that the author did a great job on was the suspense he added throughout the story. For examples the ghost mother got inside Sarah, how jacks asthma attacks almost killed him multiple times, how he had contact with the other side, and so many other problems. All the main parts of the story lead up to one and another. I also liked that he could add such an evil character such as the ghost mother, and still make us connect with her. I feel like i connected with all the characters, and now that it is over, i feel i want more. Overall , this book was great and i would suggest it to all age groups.

An fun and educational read for young and old set in a haunted house. Limited cast of characters makes reading aloud easy but ethereal English ghosts can be challenging.

McNish's descriptions of the main character make you believe he knows something about living with asthma.

Some plot elements could have been more developed but may not be noticed by most readers.

YA fiction isn't my usual thing, but I took a chance on this book because there was so much buzz about it.

I'm glad I did.

The reader is immediately introduced to four ghosts children who haunt a vacant house. McNish gives you enough to know the characters well, but he keeps the plot secrets slightly out of reach, making you slide closer to the edge of your seat and desperate for more. Before you get to the end of chapter one you feel like you've been dropped into a novel that started well before the first page. Instead of following the classic rule of revolving the story around the living characters, McNish makes the "lives" of the ghosts the real meat. The way the ghosts fear a lurking presence, their longing, and their hopes all set the stage for a book riddled with daunting backstory. McNish, however, moves Sarah and her son Jack into the house and through them pours a steady stream of information pertaining to the living and the dead.

As the reader learns more about Sarah and Jack we also learn that a sinister ghost mother has trapped the ghost children in the house. McNish gives such "heart" to his ghosts that it becomes easy to sympathize with the translucent children and even the terrifying ghost mother.

The novel's smooth read provides crisp description to genuinely terrifying scenes. I became so emotionally invested in the characters that I feared for them after I put the book down. When I remembered that they were only small children the brooding danger was almost unbearable. Without gore, without childish characters, without watering down the genre, McNish has written a ghost story with a voice so fresh and new, horror lovers will deem this book an instant classic.

this book is fulled with mystery and danger, it is definetly a must have. The old untouched house makes it even scarier than the story itself. It was and still is a great book in my opinon. i hope the writer continues to write amazing stories like this one.

McNish has pulled off an amazing feat: he's combined ghosts, an asthmatic youth, a single-parent family, 19th century poverty and much more into one coherent, creepy story.

It's got a Shirley Jackson feel in that you're never quite sure if certain characters are good or bad, if there will be a happy ending (and if it were happy, what "happy" would be).

The story is sophisticated and complicated but the subject matter would still be ok for those advanced readers who are still too young for Young Adult books. Very satisfying.