Don't Breathe a Word is brilliantly beautiful. 
 There really isn't much to say here - when I was finished I closed the back cover and just kind of sat there, thinking about everything I had just read and how the ending came together and the lessons learned. The characters were all amazingly built, with backgrounds and stories and lives that you cared about, even though they weren't the main protagonist. 
 I don't know much about being homeless (basically all I know is what I've read in a book), so watching Joy struggle to just survive on the streets really opened my eyes. She had to worry about things I would never have even considered had I been thrown on the streets. And she doesn't make the right decisions always, which makes it more of a realistic read - sometimes you read a book where a character gets in a compromised position and just perfectly figures out what they are doing and how to get out, but Cupala takes her topic seriously and writes it truly from Joy's perspective. 
 I liked Holly Cupala's debut, Tell Me A Secret, but Don't Breathe a Word is a perfect example of why you should read an author's sophomore book - Tell Me A Secret was a good read, but Don't Breathe a Word just blew me away.