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scorpstar77's review
3.0
I really want to give it 3.5 stars, but I feel strongly that 4 stars is too many. In the Breeze of Passing Things is a story about Iva, an almost-12-year-old who is trying to figure life out while taking care of her little sister, being constantly uprooted by her mom, and hoping her dad will find them. The book is largely told on the road, while driving with her mom and little sister between increasingly worse living situations. In between the present-day scenes are Iva's memories of her father and their life as a family when they all still lived together. It's fairly obvious to the adult reader that Iva is a victim of a bad parental situation: her father has some serious depression and possibly other mental illness issues for which he refuses to take medication, leaving him unreliable and erratic and occasionally unbearably sad; and her mother is immature and irresponsible, looking to her own desires and whims before paying any attention to the needs of her children. All Iva knows is that she was her dad's favorite, and she is convinced that if they're all just together again, things will go back to being happy.
I was taken with the story and wanted to find out the ending, but I was disappointed in the novel for a few reasons. One problem was that all of the characters, even Iva herself, rang just a little flat. Certainly no one other than Iva was very three-dimensional. Another issue I had was that it seemed like two different books: the section of the book after Iva leaves for Pascagoula feels like a whole different book. Also, the ending felt unrealistic and hopeless: a 12-year-old driving (!) off into the sunset all by herself to make her own way in the world does not feel hopeful in any way. All I could think of was how many awful things awaited her in the future. Finally, the story was bleak and without hope. Iva encounters disappointment after disillusionment after disappointment throughout the story, and ends with basically no hopes for herself and no idea what to do next with her life...at age 12. There were individual sentences in the book that I thought were amazingly written, and I think Reid's writing has promise, but the book was just too much of a downer for me to enjoy it much.
I was taken with the story and wanted to find out the ending, but I was disappointed in the novel for a few reasons. One problem was that all of the characters, even Iva herself, rang just a little flat. Certainly no one other than Iva was very three-dimensional. Another issue I had was that it seemed like two different books: the section of the book after Iva leaves for Pascagoula feels like a whole different book. Also, the ending felt unrealistic and hopeless: a 12-year-old driving (!) off into the sunset all by herself to make her own way in the world does not feel hopeful in any way. All I could think of was how many awful things awaited her in the future. Finally, the story was bleak and without hope. Iva encounters disappointment after disillusionment after disappointment throughout the story, and ends with basically no hopes for herself and no idea what to do next with her life...at age 12. There were individual sentences in the book that I thought were amazingly written, and I think Reid's writing has promise, but the book was just too much of a downer for me to enjoy it much.
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