Paul is new to Gate, a school whose rich students make life miserable for anyone not like them. And Paul is definitely not like them. Then, something incredible happens. Charlie Good, a star student and athlete, invites Paul to join his elite inner circle. All Charlie wants is a few things in return – small things that Paul does willingly. Until one day Charlie wants something big – really big.

Now Paul has to decide how far he'll go to be one of the gang.

The electrifying follow–up to Alex Flinn's critically acclaimed debut novel, Breathing Underwater, Breaking Point is a tale of school violence that explores why and how a good kid can go 'bad'.

Ages 12+

Amazon.com Review
Tripped in class, mooned in the hall, cola poured through the slats in his locker, spitballs stuck in his hair--how much more can Paul Richmond take at his super-snobby private school, expensive Gate-Bicknell Christian? Paul is there free because his mom works in the guidance office, but that fact makes him an instant outcast, his only friend a funny-looking, independent girl named Binky. Even worse off is David Blanco, whose mom is a cafeteria lady and whose father is the janitor. The jocks hound him unmercifully, even killing his dog. When Paul goes to David's house to offer sympathy, David rejects him angrily, saying "You'll be next." Binky, too, tries to explain the cruelty of the rich kids who surround them, but Paul yearns to be accepted anyway. So when cool, elegant, and charismatic Charlie Good asks for his help in computer lab, Paul is eager to comply, and later, when Charlie and his henchmen, Meat and St. John, come for him in the night for a game of mailbox baseball, Paul willingly does the bashing. Gradually he is accepted at school as part of Charlie's group, but for a price: having to hack into the school computers to change Charlie's D in biology. When David Blanco kills himself and the school simply ignores it, Paul is momentarily taken aback, especially when he learns that David had been Charlie's ally last year. But then Charlie reveals his real plan, for which everything else has been preliminary, and Paul has his last chance to say no.

Alex Flinn, whose Breathing Underwater earned high praise, does tribute to the great Robert Cormier in this dark and brilliant novel about the high price of acquiescence to evil. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 27 reviews)

Very "Unsettling"

These are characters I'll remember for a long time--probably longer than I want to. Everything about this novel is "intense." The characters are intense, the situations are intense, and the final choices Paul makes are intense. I felt sorry for Paul as he tried to deal with his parents' divorce, the apparent rejection by his father, and the abusive treatment by his classmates at his new exclusive private school, but I had difficulty identifying with him. I think his subservience to the sociopathic Charlie which led to so many poor choices left me feeling more frustrated with Paul than sympathetic to his situation.
August 26, 2008

Great teen book

This book is an excellent look at the manipulation and violence that occurs not just at inner city schools,but private expesnive ones as well.
May 10, 2008

Alex's Review

This book is about a 15 year old kid named Paul Richmond that has to more to a new school full of rich punks and jocks. Paul has four friends: Meat, Charlie, St. John, and Binky. Paul meets Binky at registration for school. One night the three guys knock on Paul's window and ask him to go on a midnight drive with them to join the mail box club. When beer, mailboxes, a baseball bat, and 300 bagels are mixed in it becomes a crazy night. Over time those crazy nights become a nightly tradition. Later on Charlie and Paul get the idea to do a major revenge prank to the people at school that later on would get them in SERIOUS trouble with the cops.

I gave this book 4 stars because the beginning is a little slow but after about the 3rd chapter it is good from there until the book ends.

April 16, 2008

The intersting book The Breaking Point

The very interesting book is about a shy teen named Paul Richmond. He starts going to a new school made for rich people. It is just Paul and his mom, who makes no money at all. The only reason he can go to this school is his mom works in the kitchen. When he is standing in registration he meets a nerd called Binky.
Charlie is the cool kid at the school. When Charlie and Paul become friends they are only friends out side of school. One day they are at Charlie's house and he says that they need to plant a bomb to stop the bad grade from reaching his dad. When the bomb is getting ready to go off Paul yells that there is a bomb. When the cops investigate Charlie does not come clean about it and Paul gets into all the trouble.
I read this book for a book project in school. I picked this book because it looked like a cool book and by the description on the back it sounded good.
After I started reading the book I got so interested in to the book that I read it every chance I got. It is one of those books that keeps your attention all the way through out the book. If you like a good action book you would love this book.
If you love to read a good book that you can't set down read this one. I loved reading it from start to finish, it was a great book.

May 25, 2007

Bleh...

First off, I loved her book, Nothing to Lose. I just have to say that some of the issues in this book I would not let a child read. I think this book tells the reader that being influenced by peer pressure is the right way to earn friends and gain a social status, but this is not the way to make friends at all. Even though at the end of the book he has suffered the consequences of peer pressure first hand by being drunk, breaking the law more than once, and going to jail, I still think that some could get mistaken and get the wrong concept of this book. By the end, it explains that peer pressure is wrong and the influences by it are great, but I would never let my child read this book.
November 05, 2006

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