Abnormal Adolescence

Mirna Marroquin
Breath to Breath - Craig Lew

The amount of strength it takes to successfully suppress and forget traumatic memories is almost inhumane, but it’s seen in the novel “Breath to Breath” by Craig Lew.  As 17 year old William is uprooted from his grandparents home in Kansas due to his troubled behavior in school, he’s sent to go live with his estranged father in California. Completely immersed in an unfamiliar environment, William has to now redefine who he is in the teenage society, and ends up befriending a nerd named Ollie and a beautiful girl named Shasten, whose jock-head boyfriend, Needlemier, seems to hate William's guts. As the story progresses, William, Ollie and Shasten get closer, however one relationship that constantly nags William is the neglected child named Patches, who always appears when William is alone, saying disturbing things. William persistently tries to chase down Patches, as he is worried for the safety of this child but is never able to catch him. When Patches reveals that he's being sexually abused, William worries about him even more and continues the chase. Towards the end of the novel, William ends up in the house that Patches always disappear in, and a sudden flood of memories hit him. The abandoned and eerie house that he's in was once the house he lived in as young child with his childhood dog named "Patches". Unfortunately, it was the same house that William's own mother sexually molested him and basically prostituted him off to pedophiles in order to receive money. These deeply disturbing memories leave William extremely lost and torn, and almost leads him to a violent end. However, one of the final quotes in the book was "A breath only allows you to exist/You must engage/Venture forth/ Tangle yourself with others to to have a life/But life needs a purpose or what's the point?" (prologue).  As the quote states, a life cannot be simply lived, as it does need its own obstacles to overcome, even if they are extremely difficult.
This book was certainly nothing close to what I've ever read, but I am very glad that I did end up reading it. The harsh and sudden realization of what actually to William shocked me as a reader, but it also made me take a step back to realize the severity of sexual abuse/assault. Living in a world where rape culture does exist ( for women and men), it actually does suck that not many notice of how normalized it was become. This year however, seems to be the year that the aging Band-Aid is being torn off and revealing the nasty topic that majority of society tends to neglect. Social media has played a major role and even though it's a disturbing topic, it must be brought to light that this issue cannot continue and that all survivors of sexual abuse/assault are incredibly strong. I would strongly recommend this book to those who are interested in being enlightened of a sexual assault survivor's perspective, and for those who need a literature connection to some tragic event in their own past.