In Breathing, the reader hears the story of first love as told by a 15 year old girl, Savannah Georgina Brown. Set in a small North Carolina town, Savannah normally spends her summer vacations babysitting her younger brother and his best friend, working part time at the public library, reading trashy romance novels while swinging in her hammock, and hoping that she doesn’t have another hospitalization for her severe asthma. This particular summer things change dramatically when she meets a cute surfer, Jackson, who is in town to visit his cousins. The romance between Savanna and Jackson concerns Savanna’s mother but when Jackson stays by Savanna’s side during a hospitialization, the mother grows to appreciate Jackson and his devotion to her daughter. ‘What if the guy who took your breath away was the only one who could help you breath?” is a notable line of the novel that refers to Savanna’s ‘love at first sight’ experience of meeting Jackson and also commends him for the support he gave her while she was ill. Jackson and Savannah are separated by his having to return home to another city, and the reader listens to their long distance phone conversations and Savannah’s worried discussions with her mother and brother during the time she and Jackson are apart. This book may appeal to teenaged girls who like romance stories. It is a ‘feel good’ story, but Savannah’s Southern dialect and especially her bad grammar grated on this reader.