Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

****Contains spoilers**** Let me just start with saying that I have been a fan of the Breathing series books, especially the first book, and I awaited anxiously for this last part of the series to be released, having high hopes for it. I'm sad to say that I was pretty disappointed. I don't think that Out of Breath is a good book. I didn't hate it, but it didn't come close to being the great books that the first two of the series were. There were several things I had problems with regarding the writing style and the characters' development. There was definitely something missing from this book, and I know part of it has to do with the fact that the empathy I had for Emma in the first two books was now gone. In Out of Breath, apparently two years have gone by, and Emma, who has thrown herself into her college studies, stays away from dating, and continues to keep all her feelings to herself, all of a sudden changes into a promiscuous party girl when she is reminded of her past. One of the things about this story that I kind of found odd, is that although it's known that Emma doesn't like parties, she's not comfortable being around a lot of people, tends to be socially awkward, and doesn't like to drink alcohol, she is constantly going to parties in this book. She lets her friends talk her into going to these parties, but not before they constantly ridicule her about her wardrobe and complain that she should be wearing dresses. These things are repetitive throughout the book, which got quite annoying. Also, Emma's so-called friends are overly protective of her to the point that they think they have to watch her every minute. They treat her as if she's as fragile as a glass that might shatter, and claim to want to fix her, yet not only do they push Emma to go to these college parties she's uncomfortable going to, but then they also ditch her when they get there, leaving her to get drunk enough to drown out her anxiety, which usually leads to her stripping her clothes off in public and even fooling around with a stranger. Enter Cole. Emma meets Cole for the first time at one of the parties and completely blows him off. I just want to say that Emma's attitude and the way she treats people in this book (including Evan) give the impression of her being a stuck-up, self-centered, selfish, bitch. I get it, she has problems, but her character's attitude has changed to the point that I no longer have the empathy I once had for her. The relationship development between Cole and Emma felt pointless to me in the end. Coincidentally, it starts off actually very similar to how her relationship with Evan started, which is, she dislikes him in the beginning, and then they start to build some kind of friendship, and she becomes comfortable enough around him that she starts to think of him as more than a friend. Lust enters the picture, and there is a lot of sexual tension. Sound familiar? Emma finally gives into her lust and gets it on with Cole quite a few times. Although Emma spends a lot of her time with Cole and is sleeping in his bed every night, she insists that they're not dating. The relationship is kind of sweet though, and she seems very comfortable with him, so it kind of makes you think the relationship might be going somewhere promising. Then the whole thing immediately dissipates once Evan shows back up in Emma's life. It seemed strange to me that Cole, although from the beginning he has given Emma a lot of space and has accepted that they're not dating, becomes over-the-top jealous when Evan shows up, which seemed kind of out of character for him. Then, he just disappears with a note and we don't hear from him again. It was very abrupt and I felt like it was left unresolved. I mean, even if Cole and Emma weren't dating, they were at least good friends (with benefits.) He was there for her when she needed him and he played by her rules, and she trusted him enough to start a sexual relationship with him, which is not something Emma takes lightly. Emma makes Cole promise that he won't let her hurt him, which gets her off the hook when she does. She uses Cole, and doesn't seem to care much that he has left, and seems more concerned about herself and what Evan is up to than the fact that Cole, the guy she's been staying with and sleeping with in his bed every night, is now gone without a further word. Evan had been out of her life for two years, and then she makes a bond with this new guy, Cole, has a sexual relationship with him (the only other person she's been with aside from Evan), but doesn't give it a second thought when he leaves? Just didn't make a lot of sense. I feel that there should have been closure to the relationship, at least a proper goodbye. I even think it might have been interesting to have Cole try to fight for Emma, since he obviously grew to have feelings for her. But he just disappears and then it's on with the next. I think for Cole being a filler character, there was a lot of wasted time spent on the relationship and it had no significance to the story. So now the story is focused back on Emma and Evan, who are starting from scratch again. Like the first book, there is plenty of awkwardness, sexual tension, and secrets that each have to tell the other, but of course it's all dragged out until almost the end of the book. Emma repeatedly flushes red in Evan's presence, and Evan is very obsessed with Emma's thin frame and perfectly sculpted legs. Those are phrases that you come to read over and over. For some reason, Emma thinks she has to hold back from sleeping with Evan (even though she slept with Cole a bunch of times when she wasn't in love with him) until finally, near the end of the book, they can't resist each other any longer and are "ready". They're both happy and in love again, and then just when you think it might end on that happy note, Emma announces that she has to go find Jonathan. Um, what??? All righty then. This book is a real downer. Every time Emma seems to be feeling better or as close as you can get to feeling good, tragedy happens such as her mom dying, and her later finding the letter her mom wrote to her that basically tells Emma she hates her. She feels guilt over what she thinks she's covering up for Jonathan, and guilt for walking away from him. She feels guilty about walking away from Evan too. Emma has some really big issues in this book. Just to name a few, she has flashbacks, nightmares, her mother commits suicide, and Emma herself contemplates suicide. Why wasn't she in some kind of counseling? After her aunt tried to kill her in the first book, she should have been in counseling at least to deal with that. I thought of Emma as very strong and brave in the first two books. I didn't expect the author to make her so fragile and weak in this last part of the series. I really expected this book to be about Emma's healing process and growth as a young adult, and for her to deal with her issues, but I don't feel like happened at all. I feel like there was a lot that was left unresolved. Referring to the writing style, one of the most frustrating things about this book is that the author decided to suddenly switch points of view between Emma and Evan, but it is a constant back and forth thing within the pages, which I think is totally unnecessary. Usually POV is alternated with chapters, which I would have been fine with. I just thought it was annoying to constantly be switching back and forth between POV every few sentences. The end of the book has a seemingly happy ending, but it still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. I know that the author mentioned the series will be continued in Jonathan's point of view, so maybe the readers will find out what happens with Emma and Evan, and maybe we won't. Either way, I will likely skip it.