Rating: 
Summary: Amazing...
Review: Alex Flinn did it again! I was taken aback with her first novel, Breathing Underwater. When I stumbled upon this book in my school library, I took it out immediatly. Flinn's books are like birthday gifts: you can't stop yourself from opening them. Breaking Point is a chilling tale of how a need to fit in can form into a deadly situation. Bravo Flinn!
Rating: 
Summary: Review of Breaking Point by Flinn
Review: Breaking Point (HarperTempest 2002) by Alex Flinn is a disturbing tale of harassment, bullying, and school violence. The story is told by main character Paul Richmond who is new to Miami and to Gate Christian School. Gate is a preppy school for rich kids and Paul finds out immediately that he does not fit in. The story begins with Paul's release from the Juvenile Correction Center and then goes back two years into Paul's detailed account of what led to his demise. Throughout the story, the reader is made privy to Paul's interior thoughts and the reader instinctually knows how the story will end.
Paul's parents have recently divorced and Paul has trouble dealing with the fact that his father does not want him and his mother is too self-absorbed with her own let downs to notice what's going on with Paul. When Paul, a sophomore, enters Gate Christian School, the other rich kids make it their job everyday to find new ways to harass Paul. Then, out of nowhere, the most popular guy in school, Charlie Good, falsely befriends Paul. Paul is not clever enough, or perhaps is too clouded by the overwhelming pain of rejection, to notice that Charlie is just using him as a means to an end. That end of course results in Paul reaching his "breaking point" and many lives are devastatingly changed as a result.
This story will likely remind many readers of the Columbine incident. However, this story does end differently. Paul is released from the Juvenile Correction Center. His future is still unknown. Charlie, as the reader predicts, has had no redemption for his actions and will likely find another victim to prey on.
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Certainly, the theme here is "Families in Crisis/Families Dealing with Change." The reader feels anger towards Paul's parents who have made a costly mistake in ignoring Paul's feelings. Divorce is difficult for all parties, not just the husband and wife, but the child as well. Add to that relocating to a new city, enrolling in a school where you are treated like the scum of the earth, and then hearing your father tell you that he doesn't want you. The reader can see all the signs and yet Paul's parents are oblivious. It took Paul's damaging deed to wake his parents up. It didn't have to be that way.
Rating: 
Summary: The new kid
Review: breaking point was a nother suckses by Alex Flinn. She has writen a book that others can connect with. This book really goes into detail about how hard it is for kids with parents that split up. It also explains the trubles with always moving and having to change schools that are new and have no friends where you go. I would recomend this book to any one that whants a good book to read.
Rating:
Summary: The new kid
Review: breaking point was a nother suckses by Alex Flinn. She has writen a book that others can connect with. This book really goes into detail about how hard it is for kids with parents that split up. It also explains the trubles with always moving and having to change schools that are new and have no friends where you go. I would recomend this book to any one that whants a good book to read.
Rating:
Summary: It always sucks being the new kid...
Review: Especially if you fit the category of nerdiness. And that's exactly what it is like for Paul when he first enters Gate, the exclusive school for rich kids. But he gets to go there free because his mother works in the office. At first, school for him is total hell - from coke getting sprayed into his locker to a group of jocks mooning him in the hall. His only friend is the odd and homely Binky, a girl with no friends herself. But then he meets Charlie Good, a very popular, charismatic boy who drags Paul out of the world of nerdiness and into the world of the popular. Paul is mesmerized by Charlie and is so needy for love and acceptance that he will do whatever it takes...even if it means planting a bomb in the school.
Overall, this was a very good book. There were a few disturbing scenes in the book and I wish Paul had more balls to stand up to Charlie and realize that Binky was a true friend, but Alex Flinn's amazing, funny writing style more than makes up for it. She is an excellent writer and I loved her book, Breathing Underwater, which takes us into the mind of an abuser - quite a delicious twist, if you ask me. She is good at creating anti-heroes that we can relate to in one way or another.
I look forward to her next endeavor. I hope she joins the ranks of Chris Crutcher and other popular authors of the YA genre. She is extraordinary!
Rating:
Summary: A chilling novel.
Review: Fifteen-year-old Paul enters an exclusive private school, where everyone considers him a freak and an outsider, until he is befriended by a charismatic boy and is asked to pay the ultimate price for friendship. I read "Breathing Underwater" by Alex Flinn last month and wasn't impressed - however, this one was ten times better. It just goes to show how flawed the school systems are, and how utterly uncontrollable school violence is
Rating:
Summary: From a Teen reader
Review: From a Teen reader - Alex Flinn did it again. I just finished reading her second book BREAKING POINT. This book, like her last, targets the teenage readers. I went to a private school. This book honestly portrays how private school cliques opperate. The fast pace of the book kept me so interested that I couldn't put it down. Alex Flinn accurately explains the difference between real loving, caring friendships, and manipulative friendships. Thanks Alex Flinn for the best summer reading I've done so far.
Rating:
Summary: Harsh and healing
Review: How much can one kid suffer before he lashes out? And who will be there when he finally breaks? Read Alex Flinn's Breaking Point to learn the truth about Paul Richmond, one of "those kids"---you know, the kind you see profiled on CNN after the latest school disaster. Flinn shows us Paul *before* the disaster, when he is still a shy, likable kid longing for a friend. Is it Paul's fault that the friend he finds is so very evil? Flinn explores this question and more in this entertaining and insightful page-turner.
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Summary: Sophomore Slump
Review: I must respectfully disagree with the other reviewers. I read through Alex Flinn's "Breaking Point" fast enough, it wasn't a pain to slog through or anything, but it was no where near on the level of her dazzling first novel, "Breathing Underwater". The characters in "BU" were always easy to relate to, which got sometimes disturbing, as the lead character was an abuser. In this book however, all the characters seemed like nothing but cardboard archetypes. I mean, the devlish boy who leads our narrator into trouble has the last name of "Good". Gee, could that BE more obvious? All the other characters fall into other predictable slots. For God's sake, the book would have been 100 times more interesting and less formulaic if Paul, the lead character who craves acceptance, could have admitted he didn't want to be friends/*be* Charlie, the other lead character with a sadistic streak, he wanted to *date* Charlie. Sheesh. Could there have been anymore homoerotic overtones in this book? Stick with Flinn's brilliant first book, "Breathing Underwater" if you're really interested in the pressures our culture puts on teenage boys and the disaster that can ensue. And if you must have a book with a school violence tilt try something a little more engaging and less standard like "Give A Boy A Gun" by Todd Strasser.
Rating:
Summary: More real than you'd like to think
Review: I read the book Breaking Point in one sitting. When you read it, you are constantly wondering what will happen next. I couldn't put it down. Paul Richmond has trouble making friends in his new school. Then, Charlie Good, the most popular guy at school, takes him in. Suddenly, Paul is accepted, but with a price. Charlie wants him to do all sorts of things that Paul would never have thought of doing . . . stuff like smashing mailboxes and drinking. And then, Charlie wants him to do something much, much bigger. This book deals with school violence, an important topic facing teenagers. But what I really liked about it is that it shows what high school is really like when you're an outsider. You get to be right inside the character's head and know what he's going through and what could drive him to do something so bad. A lot of people might not like to think that this is what teens are really going through, but it is. I recommend this book. Read it!
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