Learning to Breathe

Sixteen-year-old Indy is sexually assaulted by her cousin and her mother sends her away to live with an aunt and cousins where she must go to a different school and face the circumstances of her pregnancy. She makes friends with the son of a yoga retreat’s owner and ends up working at the retreat, where his mom supports and helps Indy when she decides to keep the baby. This fast-paced, coming-of-age story for grades 10-12 is set in the Bahamas, deals with issues of substance abuse, sexual assault, mental health, identity, resilience, dysfunctional families, trust, and relationships, and is suitable as an independent or literature circle novel or to support a thematic study of sexual exploitation.