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Learning to Breathe Paperback – August 6, 2019

by Janice Lynn Mather (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 50 ratings
See all formats and editions
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A 2019 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection
Amelia Bloomer List’s 2019 Top Ten Recommended Feminist Books for Young Readers
A Governor General’s Literary Award Finalist
A Junior Library Guild Selection
A Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize Semifinalist
A BC Book Prize Finalist

“A love letter to girls—bittersweet and full of hope.” —Ibi Zoboi, author of National Book Award Finalist American Street
“This is a stellar debut.” —Brandy Colbert, award-winning author of Little & Lion and Pointe
“A vibrant, essential story of healing, resilience, and finding one’s family.” —Stephanie Kuehn, author of William C. Morris Award winning Charm & Strange
“A raw, beautiful, unforgettable must-read.” —Tiffany D. Jackson, author of Allegedly
“Poetic.” —Angela Johnson, award-winning author of Heaven
“A powerful, poignant story about refusing to let the past dictate who you are or who you will become.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This is a well-written, thought-provoking book that tackles difficult topics…a stirring debut.” —School Library Journal (starred review)

Sixteen-year-old Indy struggles to conceal her pregnancy while searching for a place to belong in this stunning debut novel that’s perfect for fans of Amber Smith and Sara Zarr.

Indira Ferguson has done her best to live by her Grammy’s rules—study hard in school, be respectful, and never let a boy take advantage of her. But it hasn’t always been easy, especially living in her mother’s shadow.

When Indy is sent to stay in Nassau, trouble follows her and she must hide an unwanted pregnancy from her aunt, who would rather throw Indy out onto the street than see the truth. Completely broke with only a hand-me-down pregnancy book as a resource, Indy desperately looks for a safe space to call home.

After stumbling upon a yoga retreat, she wonders if she’s found that place. But Indy is about to discover that home is much bigger than just four walls and a roof—it’s about the people she chooses to share it with.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
  4. Publication date
    August 6, 2019
  5. Grade level
    9 - 12
  6. Reading age
    14 years and up
  7. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.9 x 8.25 inches
  8. ISBN-10
    1534406026
  9. ISBN-13
    978-1534406025
  10. Lexile measure
    HL640L
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A love letter to girls—bittersweet and full of hope.” -- Ibi Zoboi, author of National Book Award Finalist AMERICAN STREET

“This is a stellar debut.” -- Brandy Colbert, award-winning author of LITTLE & LION and POINTE

“A vibrant, essential story of healing, resilience, and finding one’s family.” -- Stephanie Kuehn, author of William C. Morris Award winning CHARM & STRANGE

“A raw, beautiful, unforgettable must-read.” -- Tiffany D. Jackson, author of ALLEGEDLY

“Poetic.” -- Angela Johnson, award-winning author of HEAVEN

“If you want to understand #MeToo for a sixteen-year old growing up on what many Americans know mostly as a tourist paradise, read Learning to Breathe. Mather is stunning as she shows us Indira's Bahamas, its landscapes, the search of a girl for herself on her island home. Indira will break your heart with her fierce voice and grit in the face of living in a family so damaged they all but abandon this beautiful girl of their own.” -- Terry Farish, award-winning author of THE GOOD BRAIDER

"Through well-crafted dialogue, fresh characters, and solid pacing, the book's mature themes are handled carefully and with sensitivity. A powerful, poignant story about refusing to let the past dictate who you are or who you will become." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Much like Ibi Zoboi’s American Street, this challenging read confronts injustice and celebrates strength of character and spirit." -- Booklist

* "This is a well-written, thought-provoking book that tackles difficult topics such as unwanted pregnancy, familial relationships, and rape, with nuance... A stirring debut for all YA collections." -- SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, STARRED REVIEW

*A Junior Library Guild Selection

"Mather skillfully balances emotionally wrenching scenes and surprisingly humorous ones; well-drawn supporting characters...enrich this capable debut." -- Publishers Weekly

"There is a realness and great level of depth to Indira’s character, and Mather does a magnificent job of conveying a girl’s muted existence following sexual assault and trauma." -- BCCB

"Emotionally charged, thought provoking and unforgettable." -- Shelf Awareness

*A Governor General’s Literary Award Finalist

*A 2019 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection

*Amelia Bloomer List’s 2019 Top Ten Recommended Feminist Books for Young Readers

About the Author

Janice Lynn Mather is a Bahamian Canadian author. Her first novel, Learning to Breathe, was a Governor General’s Award finalist, a Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize finalist, shortlisted for the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award, an ALA/YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection, an Amelia Bloomer Book List pick, and a Junior Library Guild Selection. Her second novel, Facing the Sun, was an Amy Mathers Teen Book Award winner. Where Was Goodbye? is her third novel for teens. Janice Lynn lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (August 6, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1534406026
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1534406025
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 14 years and up
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ HL640L
  • Grade level ‏ : ‎ 9 - 12
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 50 ratings

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
50 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dom
5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to stop reading even if you want to look away
Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2020
Verified Purchase
The language is simple but there is a lot going on in every line of this book. With subtlety and care, it captures island life and the way there is more going on under the surface than you can glean at first glance—you gotta take time to see what you're lookin' at.
Mather captures the drama of some of humanity's oldest, most personal conflicts with a fresh perspective. The conflicts loom over the young narrator and are ruthlessly oppressive but oh so compelling. By the time the first ray of light comes out it's heartbreaking. The imagery is layered but not pushy and the metaphors are there if you want them but they are willing to wait for a second read.
This is a story of real problems, real people and life in The Bahamas but more than anything else, it's a thrilling story and a perspective we need a lot more of.
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Nichelle Moore
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2022
Verified Purchase
Great and quick read
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Lauren @ Lauren's Crammed Bookshelf
4.0 out of 5 stars Caught Me by Surprise!
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2018
In the synopsis the publisher compares Janice Lynn Mather's Learning to Breathe to books by Sara Zarr and Amber Smith, and I believe that comparison is spot on. Learning to Breathe isn't an easy book by any means. There's plenty of heartbreaking moments as well as times at which I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse for Indy only to be proven otherwise. At the same time, however, Learning to Breathe does offer a breathe of hope, a breath of positivity, because at a core Learning to Breathe isn't about a book falling to rock bottom. No, it's a book about hitting rock bottom, only to climb out and be stronger and better than ever before.

Learning to Breathe introduces Indy, a teenager hiding more than one secret. All her life, Indy's been the girl everyone talked about. From her body to her family to her choices, everyone seems to have an opinion. From the very first page Indy's voice grabbed me and didn't let me go until the very end. When the story first begins, Indy's at a crossroads. She's forced to leave the person she loves the most, the one who also loves her the most, and go to a new place. She doesn't fell very brave, but it was easy to see that she was. Throughout the course of the story, Indy faces so many hard choices and tough situations, but she always managed to stand strong, and I admired that about her. She was resourceful and smart, more so than many gave her credit for. I loved the relationship between her and her grandmother. It was sweet and thoughtfully developed, and I feel like it was essential to who Indy was. She never wanted to disappoint her grandmother, to let her down, and while I could understand that, there were so many times at which I wish she would've gone to her for help.

Over the course of the book, a variety of characters are introduced - some good and some bad - and each had an important role to play. The biggest surprise, however, was Crunchy. When Crunchy is first introduced, he doesn't seem like he'll be very important, but I was wrong. Crunchy turned out to be such a sweet and caring individual, and I loved the friendship that resulted between him and Indy. It warmed my heart. I was so happy to finally see someone fighting for her again, some who was willing to do anything to help her. It was so different from the other people in her life. Those individuals...well, they were just terrible.

Learning to Breathe deals with tough subjects - teenage pregnancy, sexual assault, etc. I thought Janice did a wonderful job of handling each topic. Indy's story is an important one, because there are girls like her out there, girls who no one will listen to, girls that need our help, and I hope this book will open people's eyes to this. Some people have said that the ending was a bit too ideal, and while I somewhat agree, I was happy with where it left off.

In all, Learning to Breathe is a heartbreaking and gripping read, perfect for fans who love hard hitting YA contemporary. This may be my first book by Janice but it certainly won't be my last.
4 people found this helpful
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Awesum43
5.0 out of 5 stars Hey this is a must read!
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2020
Verified Purchase
This is one of those books that you read until you fall asleep and wake up and read again! Real life and factual.
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Paige
5.0 out of 5 stars Painful but breathtakingly beautiful and worthwhile
Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2020
See more of my reviews on The YA Kitten! My copy was an ARC I got from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Content warnings: graphic rape, sexual violence against a child (harassment, abuse, AND assault), emotional abuse, alcoholism, misogynoir.

Just so you don’t go into this book with any misconceptions, it’s set in the Bahamas and it’s about sixteen-year-old Indy, who is pregnant from one of the many, many times her cousin raped her. She’s unable to tell her aunt, uncle, and other cousin because she’s terrified they’ll call her a liar and cast her out of their home, so she has to her pregnancy hidden while reckoning with impending motherhood and reflecting on how her own grandmother and deeply troubled mother were as mothers to Indy. Her only guide: an annotated pregnancy book from her grandmother.

You wouldn’t have gathered all that from the jacket copy, right? This is a dark book with a lot of painful subject matter, but it’s moreover a brilliant book about finding your own family, learning to cope with your trauma, and breaking generations-long cycles of abuse.

Indira “Indy” Ferguson has been raised by her grandmother for almost all of her life since her mother is more occupied with doing drugs and acquiring bad boyfriends. Going to live in Nassau with her aunt and uncle was supposed to be a good thing. She’d be able to get a better education than she could on her home island and make something of herself, but then she met Gary, her male cousin, and he proceeded to rape and sexually abuse her so regularly that she’s developed a horrific acceptance of what he does. Then he goes without a condom one night and that’s enough to get her pregnant with her rapist’s spawn.

As the novel unfolds, it turns out suffering at the hands of men who can’t keep their hands off little Black girls runs in the family. Indy’s own mother Sharice was sexually abused and assaulted as a teen too, leading to Indy’s conception and birth. Her reliance on alcohol and a string of bad boyfriends is how she self-medicates and tries to provide for her daughter when all she’s ever known is men who use and abuse her. In her own way, she tries her best to protect Indy; when one man shows interest in her, Sharice redirects his attention back to herself. Though Indy’s grandmother Eunice never suffered the same way, she’s been kicking herself for decades because she missed the signs of what was happening to Sharice.

Learning to Breathe tears into misogynoir with razor-sharp teeth, showing readers how Black girls suffer because of it. They’re fetishized and mistreated by those around them, called “fast” just because they’re growing into their bodies and treated as sex objects in a way no white woman will never understand because they don’t experience the historical trauma of racism like Black women do. When nothing changes, the cycle of abuse will continue and history will repeat itself. As Sharice became a teenage mother because of a rapist, so will Indy.

But Indy has something her mother didn’t seem to at the time: her family. Her uncle, aunt, and Gary don’t count because they’ve proven they aren’t Indy’s family by hurting her one way or another. Her other cousin Smiley just don’t know what’s going on. The family Indy finds is at a yoga retreat on the island–owner Joe, her son Dion, Maya, and Susan–and with her old friend Churchy, who is in Nassau for school just like Indy is. Though Churchy has a crush on her, there isn’t any romance between them. Since he exhibits behavior that echoes her mother’s boyfriends at one point, that’s definitely for the best. She’ll find love when it’s time, but this novel covers a time when it would be a bad idea.

Indy plans to keep her pregnancy and raise her child, but abortion is also presented as an option for her. Though the procedure has to be arranged quietly due to abortion being illegal in most circumstances in the Bahamas, Churchy and Joe both offer their help if Indy wants to get one. Though Gary contributed the sperm, Indy’s child is hers and only hers. She’s scared to have a child but also looking forward to it, especially once her found family comes together to be her support system. The novel’s ending and epilogue will leave readers feeling hopeful for Indy’s future and a little bit lighter as well. When you walk through the darkness, the light at the end is worth it.

Still, fock this book and its ending for making me cry so hard at who-knows-when-the-fock o’clock at night. Two of my cats came to check on me, I was sobbing so much. You should absolutely read Learning to Breathe if you’re able to do so.
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