Breathe
by Anne-Sophie Brasme
Phoenix $105
This beautiful and brutal novella is about a teenager's obsession with another girl. It opens with the narrator confessing to murder and describing the events leading to the crime. The girls are best friends at school, but it becomes an abusive relationship from which neither can free herself. The book also explores the nature of addiction - the victim knows she has to give up the object of her desire yet lacks the strength. As murder is the only solution she can find, she feels no regret. Anne-Sophie Brasme, who was born in 1984 in Paris, caused a sensation in France with this debut. A teenager when she wrote it, she captures the morbidity and self-centredness of adolescence, and keeps the reader hooked until the chilling end.
