Don't Breathe a Word [Paperback]

Holly Cupala (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 3, 2012

Joy delamere is suffocating.

From asthma, from her parents, and from her boyfriend, Asher, who is smothering her from the inside out. She can take his cruel words, his tender words . . . until the night they go too far.

To escape, Joy sacrifices her suburban life to find the one who offered his help, a homeless boy called Creed. He introduces her to a world of fierce loyalty, to its rules of survival, and to love—a world she won’t easily let go.

Set against the backdrop of the streets of Seattle, Holly Cupala’s power­ful new novel explores the subtleties of abuse, the secrets we keep, and the ways to redemption. But above all, it is an unflinching story about the extraordinary lengths one girl will go to discover her own strength.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

You have got to be desperate to stage your own kidnapping, but that is just what 16-year-old Joy does. To make matters even more precarious, she suffers from life-threatening asthma, which Cupala uses as a powerful metaphor for Joy’s figurative suffocation in the inescapable trap into which she has been drawn. The first-person narrative shuttles back and forth in time between Joy’s abuse at the hands of her boyfriend (the reader has to add up clues that Joy herself has trouble facing) and her life on the Seattle streets after she has fled from her abuser. Cupala’s depiction of what it takes to survive on the streets and the various perils that can ensnare runaways is vivid and fascinating. This novel recalls Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak (1999) in its psychological astuteness about the many terrifying tendrils connected to teen sexual abuse, and it works just as well on a suspense level, too. Grades 10-12. --Connie Fletcher

Review

“Don’t Breathe a Word is a gorgeously written, intense page-turner . . . This is a beautiful book.” (Courtney Summers, author of Some Girls Are and Cracked Up to Be )

“I dare you to set it down during its last hundred pages. I dare you.” (Deb Caletti, National Book Award nominee for Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, for Tell Me a Secret )

“A powerful story of self-discovery, and a brilliant debut novel.” (—Ellen Hopkins, New York Times bestselling author of the Crank trilogy )

“Cinematic.” (Publishers Weekly, for Tell Me a Secret )

“Holly Cupala’s debut novel will be immensely popular among teens. Teen fans will be captivated by the theme of owning your own path, the persistence of life and closure.” (Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA), for Tell Me a Secret )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: HarperTeen; Original edition (January 3, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061766690
• ISBN-13: 978-0061766695
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #841,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Holly Cupala wrote teen romance novels before she ever actually experienced teen romance. When she did, it became all about tragic poetry and slightly less tragic novels. When she isn't contributing readergirlz.com and writing, she spends time with her husband and daughter in Seattle, Washington. These days, her writing is less about tragedy and more about hope.

Part of the author's proceeds from this book will go toward helping sexually exploited girls around the globe. TELL ME A SECRET is her first novel. Learn more at http://www.hollycupala.com or visit her blog at http://brimstonesoup.blogspot.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Left Me Gasping for Breath! (Heavy Content) January 10, 2012

By Reading Teen

Format:Paperback

At a glance:

Don't Breathe a Word is an amazingly powerful and fantastically written book that shows you the harsh realities of abuse, teenage homelessness, and other tough issues, without being depressing or losing that sense of hope I long for when reading a book. It was heartbreaking, but it was also funny and exciting and romantic and beautiful. Even if you don't normally read contemporary, I think you will love this book.

Review:

I don't read a whole lot of contemporary. Especially books that tend to deal with issues, whether it's abuse, disorders, drugs, or the like. I just tend lean more toward fantasy, paranormal, or dystopia. But I did read Holly Cupala's Tell Me a Secret and really connected with it, so I was excited to read Don't Breathe a Word, to see what Holly would do this time. This book blew the roof off any contemporary I've ever read. I loved it!

I think this has a lot to do with the fact that Holly wrote it in such a way that you never felt hopeless. You could always see a light at the end of the tunnel. She also wrote in past and present, using flashbacks to reveal more and more about why Joy ran away, and the abuse and shame that she had to endure before leaving. There was a mystery element the book had that added to the appeal of the story, and the pacing was perfect.

I fell in love with each and every one of the characters. Ok, maybe not Asher.....ack! But the others, even when they were being total idiots, I just wanted to adopt them, and take care of them and tell them they are worth something. I loved Joy, and CREED!!! Especially Creed! I loved that even though he was a broken person, he still did all he could to protect the others. I can't tell you how much I love listening to someone play guitar and sing, so I could just hear Creed in my head. Two of the characters I felt the most for, though, were May and Santos. They seriously just made me want to cry.

Holly did such an amazing job with the intensity and the setting as well. I was in constant fear for the lives of these kids. Whether it was from creepy stalker guy, or Asher, or the police, or other gangs, my nerves were standing on end all the time. I felt like I could see the places that they were living and "working" at in Seattle. I've never been there before, yet I could picture it all clearly in my head. Some will undoubtedly say that the ending was unrealistic, but just because something isn't probable, it doesn't mean it couldn't happen. I thought it was perfect. I would have been upset with anything less.

I loved this book!

-Andye

Content:
Sexual Content: Heavy
Profanity: Very Heavy
Violence: Moderate, including abuse
Other Notables: Drinking, Drug use, Prostitution, Teenage Homelessness, Theft
For more details, check out Don't Breathe a Word on Parentalbookreviews.com

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars My Rating: 4.5 - Caught-Me-Off-Guard GREAT book. January 14, 2012

By Burgandy Ice

Format:Paperback

This book is heart-wrenching and satisfying and frightening all at the same time. It is written from Joy's perspective and the story unfolds as her thoughts do, as she tries different ways of dealing with a horrible, controlling situation. I was furiously angry with the man who caused the problems in the first place: Asher, with his obsession for crows and his fascination for their hierarchy. He experiments with controlling an young girl and it's sickening.

I was heartbroken over the damage he inflicted on so many levels, but the most painful, I thought, was the sexual. She was drawn to him even as she hated him. He had woken her physically and that awakening was always there, exposed, between her and men around her. Even when she ran, this sensual tension could not go away.

The danger on the streets felt so real. It was so sad how the kids only had their bodies when everything else was stripped away. They lost possessions and shelter and were reduced to using their bodies to survive, and that is a stark reality that is hard to swallow. Horrible.

I loved the way Joy changed and grew. She was completely credible to me and her decisions made sense. I was frustrated with her family, all of them. Her parents didn't want to help or listen, not even at the very end. Her friend, Neeta, saw more, but could only help Joy as much as she would let her.
Creed is amazing and I loved all of Joy's street friends and who she became herself, Triste, to be able to see her situation more clearly and respond more truly. And I was ultimately overjoyed with her choices because she didn't have options.

I mean, this book really tugged at my heart as a Mom. I really wanted to step in and be there for her, point out her non-choices surrounding the Asthma when she seemed to ignore them indefinitely. (Partly because one of my kids rode in an ambulance and was in the ICU for a few days over breathing issues.) Joy was willing to take more risks than I was willing to let her!!

But I think that's exactly how the author planned it out. As Joy took her risks, she turned into a confident person and left the victim behind.

I expected the heart-wrenching when I read this book, I guess, but I did not expect the fast pace it was delivered with. There isn't a lull in the entire book. Only the phone stopped me long enough to grab a snack before finishing it. And I had no intention of reading it all in one day, believe me. I don't know the depth of truth regarding the street kids, personally, but they won't be invisible to me after this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it and would most definitley recommend it. September 30, 2012

By Nicole

Format:Paperback

My little sister and I read vastly different literature. She sticks nearly solely to dark contemporary literature, while I like to stay with my fantasy and science-fiction. Every now and then, we flop and read something in the genre that the other loves - I usually do it unprompted, my sister upon my recommendation.

The moment I finished this book, I walked into her room, put it into her hands, and said, "Read this."

I liked this book a lot. Not enough to keep my copy and demand my sister get her own, but it is one of the best pieces of contemporary fiction that I've read in a very long time. Cupala manages to capture the emotion that teenagers experience when they're trapped in a situation that they can only see one way out of. From the first page, I pitied Joy - her weakness, her own entrapment, the birdcage she had set for herself. I hated Asher. I loved Neeta and how she kept trying to help Joy, even when Joy herself thought she was lost forever. I pitied May and how she kept getting sucked back into the same routine. I adored Creed and everything he stood for. And my love for Santos knows no bounds - though that may just be because he paralleled their lives to Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

[SPOILER ALERT] For all the superamazingness that is most of the novel, the ending, of course, is a bit unrealistic. All of the characters get some variation of a happy ending or a comeuppance. The optimist in me loves that, and the reviewer in me goes, "Hey, that shouldn't have happened!" But my optimist keeps winning on this one. [END SPOILER ALERT]

Given how often library books were brought into the story, I'd love to recommend the fictional Joy one - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. With all the problems she had breaking out of her birdcage, I think she'd understand Jane, and how she was "no bird; and no net ensnared [her]; [she] was a free human being with an independent will."