Breathe My Name

Breathe My Name

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77  ·  rating details  ·  848 ratings  ·  143 reviews
"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...more
Hardcover, 314 pages
Published November 8th 2007 by Razorbill
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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 2,243)
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Michelle
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Jennifer Wardrip
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...more
Celia Powell
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 he...more
Jennifer
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 twi...more
Lauren
Sep 10, 2007 Lauren rated it 3 of 5 stars
Shelves: ya
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 wra...more
Megan
Mar 05, 2009 Megan rated it 5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Megan by: Heather Norman
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 se...more
Rachel Brown
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 sister...more
Brenda
I loved the whole " my mom tried to kill me and now she expects me to visit her in a mental hospital" thing. I was surprised Frances actually did go visit her mom. I wouldn't willingly go near anyone who could kill her three kids without caring. Though, I suppose she was looking for closure and there wouldn't have been anything to write about if Frances hadn't. (Rolls eyes)

Anyways.
Frances is an 18 year old junior in high school who is 4 foot 11. Her mom killed her sisters and went to prison. Fra...more
Kelley
Jul 10, 2012 Kelley rated it 3 of 5 stars
Shelves: 2012
This was a YA book that I first picked up at our HS library but the one of my students read it, loved it and returned it before I got a chance to get to it! When I saw it again at the Troy library, I jumped at the chance to actually sit down and enjoy it. The story is about Francine, a high school junior with a terrible secret: her mentally disturbed mother suffocated her three siblings (and almost Francine) when she was younger. The story alternates between chapters illustrating her mother's me...more
Evelyn
Readable but...I did not like it. The beginning was promising, but as soon as Nix was introduced things started to disintegrate. Thankfully the romance was connected to other things - fear, and trust - but Nix was not a believable character. I was half-expecting him to turn out to be bad news. The best friend irritated me as well. The main character, too. In fact, there were absolutely no characters I particularly liked. Anyway. As other reviewers have said, (view spoiler)[Carruthers being the v...more
Erica
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
♥ttlyoverit17♥♪
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 sh...more
Carrie Walker
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
A.lam
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...more
Gorfo
Sep 05, 2011 Gorfo rated it 3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Gorfo by: summer
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 littl...more
82banana95
The novel Breathe my name is an incredibly fast paced novel, capturing every effect is hard. The novel begins with great interest and keeps you on your knees and toes. The main characters consist of: Francine Jelk: the oldest sibling out of her three sisters; John Mullinix: An interesting character, who helps Francine and the one she destine to fall in love with;This thriller has amazing twists and turns that you would never imagine were coming up. You would be surprised by the ending and the m...more
Christine
This book...was pretty incredible. The flashbacks are terrifyingly vivid, and the Frances is undeniably adorable. Also super easy to relate to, as she was so small and shy. Like me. :) the fact that she likes a tall guy makes me smile, and their romance was really cute. I think Nix is like...amazing. Yeah. Totally epic. Smiley! He was really friendly and cool cuz of his brother. One thing that annoyed me, and wasn't even important...Frances is watching TV at some point, and says "Some toothless...more
Christie
Dec 07, 2011 Christie rated it 3 of 5 stars
Shelves: ya
Fireless is the country where we live. Every day Momma teaches us something new about it.

Frances is 18 and something of a loner. She lives with her parents and two younger brothers in small-town Alabama. It isn’t until the new boy, John Mullinix or Nix, arrives at her school that Frances’ life cracks open. Frances has been living in the shadow of a traumatic event – an event so horrible that she never talks about it and has, in many ways, surpressed its horror.

Frances’ best friend Ann Mirette in...more
Rosanne
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Krista (CubicleBlindness Reviews)
By luck Frances was saved that day from being suffocated by her mother. She is now almost an adult, very insecure and soft-spoken. Her adoptive parents are awesome and her new boyfriend is quirky.It's obvious she's attracted to him for his ability to connect with people. She soon finds out that his brother is autistic and his home-life requires this special attention to people others just don't understand. So this makes him kind of a weirdo to others in the school. But Frances feels an instant c...more
704gabriella
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Kate Mckeever
Breathe My Name
Breathe My Name was the first book I read this year. It was actually pretty good. It was kind of crazy though. It is about this girl, Frances, who is very small for a senior in High School. One day after her father drops her off at school, she notices a weird man in his car, staring very intently at her. She feels a little freaked out, but just walks inside and blows it off. This same day, she meets a boy. He’s a new kid. As the book goes on, her and this boy fall in love on thei...more
West Region,
Breathe My Name by R.A. Nelson

Frances is in high school and living a happy enough suburban life, far from her childhood past. Her adoptive parents love and support her. She has a best friend and a blossoming crush on the new boy in town. But she can't escape her childhood past.

Her biological mother gets released -- released from a prison's psychiatric ward. She wasn't ever supposed to get out for what she did; but, model behavior, the state says. Sure, there's a restraining order out against her...more
Emily
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Wisteriouswoman
Mental illness touches so many kids' lives. This book goes deep into the territory of the disturbed mind and how it affects young people that have to deal with the terror of living with an imbalanced parent. You learn details about Frances's childhood as the story peels back each layer of her past life while continuing the story of her current life. It adds a sense of mystery to the story that makes you want to keep reading. The love story that holds the book together will keep teenage girls int...more
Lauren
Before reading Breathe My Name, I had seen a couple of stories on TV or in newspapers where the mother or father had killed their children after facing a big form of depression, but I had never really given it much thought to what it must be like to be the child left behind, the one who was saved. So, when I began this I didn't really know what to except from Frances. I wondered if she would have an all around pity party for herself constantly, pretend it didn't happen, or just deal with the con...more
Julia Driscoll
This was a really engrosing book. The story alternates between Frances's past life before her mother goes insane and kills her 3 sisters and her present in an adoptive home. (She also tried to kill Francis, but Frances got away.) Frances's actions that drive the plot are in many ways illogical, but totally understandable given the trauma she experienced. Her road trip with a new boyfriend remains fairly chaste. The emphasis is on the emotional/psychological journey here & it's very well done...more
Lauren DeStefano
I will never be able to say enough good things about this book. The characters were so vivid, and they appeared on the page fully-formed. The prose was lyrical and lovely, only sticking to necessary details. It wasn't too heavy, though it tackled a very tragic subject matter. It touches upon the ascending madness of the protagonist's mother in flashbacks that lead to a devastating conclusion. And, though the protag's sisters are long gone by the time we hear of them, they are whole, complete bei...more
Laura (Bookish Belle)
I have to start off by saying that this novel took my breath away! ;) Now that the pun is out of the way, this book was completely unforgettable! I found myself not wanting to put it down because I had to know what happened next. My heart went out to Francine and I felt everything she felt as I read. It was such a roller coaster ride and this novel made me fall in love with R.A Nelson's type of writing. The ending was something I was NOT expecting, and I felt the book was worth it just for that....more
Rachel
I liked the premise of this book, which is why I picked it out: older teen girl living with her very protective adoptive family, sole survivor of her birth mother's attempts to murder her and her three younger sisters. Shortly after the novel opens, she receives communication from her mother, who was recently released from prison. The novel turned out to be one part thriller to three parts romance/coming-of-age, which was fine, just unexpected from the summary on the flap. The pace of the novel...more
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wheres the setting? 1 9 Oct 28, 2009 10:01pm  
ghost chapter 1 20 Mar 26, 2008 01:59pm  
Breathe My Name (Paperback)
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Breathe My Name (Kindle Edition)
Breathe My Name (ebook)
Breathe My Name

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R.A. Nelson is the author of the novels TEACH ME and BREATHE MY NAME, both nominated to the YALSA Best Books for Young Adults list. Nelson’s third book is DAYS OF LITTLE TEXAS, coming out on July 14 with Knopf. He is working on his fourth book, THROAT, slated for Fall 2010, also with Knopf.

Nelson was chosen as a Horn Book Newcomer in 2005 and his books have been recognized by the New York Public L...more
More about R.A. Nelson...
Teach Me Throat Days of Little Texas Verletzlich

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“I'd make oatmeal cookies."
"Cookies?"
"I would. That's just what I would do."
"Why?"
He lifts one hand from the steering wheel and pinches his chin. "Because the world is changing so fast all the time. There's nothing you can do but just say, 'cool,' and roll with it. But some things can stay the same. Flour is still flour. Vanilla still smells like vanilla. Say a giant fireball is motoring toward us right now from Alha Centauri. Okay, universe. You expect us to run and scream and kill one another? Sorry, we're making oatmeal freaking cookies.”
11 people liked it
“Life is a war, and the families are the armies. Even if you win the war, some will never see you plant the flag.” 6 people liked it
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