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A review by reneelizabeth_
Something Like Breathing by Angela Readman
2.0
This book was so underwhelming, beautifully written, yet underwhelming - and still I wanted more.
I'm not normally a judge a book by the cover kind of girl, but when I came across this book in my local bookshop, I thought the cover, the title and the blurb all sounded and looked so beautiful and right up my alley! Turns out, this was a book I had to trudge through.
I ended up downloading the audiobook and Eilidh Beaton's narration brought it to life a little more. I began listening to the audiobook around page 75, and I think the story started to pick up around page 90. In my opinion, this book could definitely have started at page 90 and continued on from Sylvie’s essay on her hobby of collecting kisses, this part is catching, insightful and quirky, enough that it kept me trudging through the rest of the book.
I don’t know much of Readmans’ work, but I have heard she is a short story writer, and that it where I think this makes more sense. The second half of the book works brilliantly as a short story. It’s more fast paced, unanswered questions etc. However, as a novel, I’m not sure this was good enough. There were so many storylines that were beautiful, yet completely unfinished (e.g. Zach and Lorries romance, Blaire’s accident and Cal blackmailing Lorrie, Lorries Dad and bakery). There are too many forgotten loose ends – not just purposeful loose ends, but they felt like they were just forgotten.
But I do have to give Readman props on her beautiful writing style, character creation and narrative voice, just lovely and poetic. Some of her lines and metaphors etc. were just stunning, and the technique that Lorrie uses to describe people (like the way her grumps describes his whisky - also love the nickname grumps) was a beautiful characterizing touch. My favourite characters were definitely Lorrie, Grumps, Rook Cutler and Joe Clark. There was great potential for characters like Zack and Seth, yet they felt like they really didn’t get their moment. Readman introduces me to these amazing characters then doesn’t really let me into their lives.
I think Bunny and Sylvie were meant to be the two most interesting parts of this novel, yet I felt I wasn’t fed enough information to really want to know them and their struggles. However, I want to commend Readman on the plotline of Lorries father, he was such a miniscule part of this novel and yet I was so moved by her descriptions and narration of his struggles with depression. Just breath-taking.
This book was a bit of a mess, yet entirely beautiful. To me, the beginning of this book could have been deleted and the space could have been used to tie up some of those plotlines that I mentioned earlier. The potential and the storyline were truly beautiful, I’m just not sure what was set out to be achieved really was.
Overall, I would recommend, but only if you have the patience and motivation to get through 90 or so pages until it gets really good.
I'm not normally a judge a book by the cover kind of girl, but when I came across this book in my local bookshop, I thought the cover, the title and the blurb all sounded and looked so beautiful and right up my alley! Turns out, this was a book I had to trudge through.
I ended up downloading the audiobook and Eilidh Beaton's narration brought it to life a little more. I began listening to the audiobook around page 75, and I think the story started to pick up around page 90. In my opinion, this book could definitely have started at page 90 and continued on from Sylvie’s essay on her hobby of collecting kisses, this part is catching, insightful and quirky, enough that it kept me trudging through the rest of the book.
I don’t know much of Readmans’ work, but I have heard she is a short story writer, and that it where I think this makes more sense. The second half of the book works brilliantly as a short story. It’s more fast paced, unanswered questions etc. However, as a novel, I’m not sure this was good enough. There were so many storylines that were beautiful, yet completely unfinished (e.g. Zach and Lorries romance, Blaire’s accident and Cal blackmailing Lorrie, Lorries Dad and bakery). There are too many forgotten loose ends – not just purposeful loose ends, but they felt like they were just forgotten.
But I do have to give Readman props on her beautiful writing style, character creation and narrative voice, just lovely and poetic. Some of her lines and metaphors etc. were just stunning, and the technique that Lorrie uses to describe people (like the way her grumps describes his whisky - also love the nickname grumps) was a beautiful characterizing touch. My favourite characters were definitely Lorrie, Grumps, Rook Cutler and Joe Clark. There was great potential for characters like Zack and Seth, yet they felt like they really didn’t get their moment. Readman introduces me to these amazing characters then doesn’t really let me into their lives.
I think Bunny and Sylvie were meant to be the two most interesting parts of this novel, yet I felt I wasn’t fed enough information to really want to know them and their struggles. However, I want to commend Readman on the plotline of Lorries father, he was such a miniscule part of this novel and yet I was so moved by her descriptions and narration of his struggles with depression. Just breath-taking.
This book was a bit of a mess, yet entirely beautiful. To me, the beginning of this book could have been deleted and the space could have been used to tie up some of those plotlines that I mentioned earlier. The potential and the storyline were truly beautiful, I’m just not sure what was set out to be achieved really was.
Overall, I would recommend, but only if you have the patience and motivation to get through 90 or so pages until it gets really good.