Breathing underwater by alex flinn

Answer 1

**DISCLAIMER** This is really long

Nicholas Andreas is 16 years old. He attends Biscayne High School and lives in a luxurious house with his wealthy father. The story begins when Nick has been served a restraining order from his recent ex-girlfriend Caitlin, and must attend anger management sessions, and keep a journal of the story of his relationship with Caitlin, as part of his sentence.

To his friends and teachers, Nick is known as a popular, handsome, athletic, and rich teenager. Caitlin is the only person that knows about the violent nature of Nick's father, who abuses Nick both emotionally, and physically.

From the entries of his diary, we learn that Nick's best friend Tom, is completely unaware that Mr. Andreas abuses his son, and that Tom's house provides a sanctuary for Nick to escape from his personal nightmare. We see how Nick meets and falls in love with Caitlin (Cat), a smart singer with natural talent, who went to "fat camp" and lost weight, although still feeling unsecure of herself. They start dating, and along his anger management journal entries, Nick describes the progress of their relationship , at first unaware that he is illustrating the pattern of emotional abuse that finally led to the first slap he gave Caitlin, and the horrible beating when she disobeyed him, and "defied" him by singing a "sexy" song. In my opinion, the story climaxes when he violates his restraining order, and starts to see himself as a dangerous man. He becomes completely isolated, but his catharsis (or cleansing) makes him realize that his anger and insecurity, make him feel like he's "breathing underwater". At the end of the story, and the journal, we see Nick is a changed man, and he does end up renewing a relationship, but not with who'd you'd think.....