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A review by lingfish7
Breathe and Count Back from Ten by Natalia Sylvester
emotional
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
📖🎧The main character, Veronica loves to swim and dreams of being a mermaid. This is mainly because her hip dysplasia makes it difficult to do anything on land well. She prefers the ease of swimming, that way no one can see the scar on her hips from the many surgeries.
I really loved the representation in this book. It was infuriating to see the ways that the main character experienced insensitivities due to her physical disability and how people would pester her demanding to explain what her scars were from. She noticed every subtle stare as strangers would watch her limp or be insatiably curious about her scars from a distance.
The main character Veronica also comes from an immigrant family who moved to Florida from Peru. Her parents are constantly telling her that she needs to be careful of boys and when they saw her kissing a guy in a hot tub at their apartment complex they called her promiscuous and acted like she had shamed the family. While it is an extreme reaction, I can totally understand and resonate with her parents’ view of “purity.” Growing up in Christian purity culture I was taught that it was my body that was the reason men lusted and that I needed to protect my virginity at all costs. What was most impactful about this book was the fact that for how obsessed her parents were about her kissing guys, they neglected to ever teach her about consent. This is problematic considering that the guy in the hot tub was a shady guy and didn’t ask her consent for anything. She was taught to be an agreeable girl, but that’s a recipe for disaster when she thinks that telling a guy no is being rude.
Overall I struggled with the pacing of this book as it felt very YA but without a driving plot. The book was predictable and lighthearted but with really important representation. This is the first book I’ve read with a visible physical disability and I want to read more books like these!
I really loved the representation in this book. It was infuriating to see the ways that the main character experienced insensitivities due to her physical disability and how people would pester her demanding to explain what her scars were from. She noticed every subtle stare as strangers would watch her limp or be insatiably curious about her scars from a distance.
The main character Veronica also comes from an immigrant family who moved to Florida from Peru. Her parents are constantly telling her that she needs to be careful of boys and when they saw her kissing a guy in a hot tub at their apartment complex they called her promiscuous and acted like she had shamed the family. While it is an extreme reaction, I can totally understand and resonate with her parents’ view of “purity.” Growing up in Christian purity culture I was taught that it was my body that was the reason men lusted and that I needed to protect my virginity at all costs. What was most impactful about this book was the fact that for how obsessed her parents were about her kissing guys, they neglected to ever teach her about consent. This is problematic considering that the guy in the hot tub was a shady guy and didn’t ask her consent for anything. She was taught to be an agreeable girl, but that’s a recipe for disaster when she thinks that telling a guy no is being rude.
Overall I struggled with the pacing of this book as it felt very YA but without a driving plot. The book was predictable and lighthearted but with really important representation. This is the first book I’ve read with a visible physical disability and I want to read more books like these!