Spoilery Book Reviews

Breathless by Jennifer Niven

Back of the book

Claudine Henry was supposed to be spending the summer before college hanging out with her best friend, going on the road trip of a lifetime and maybe hooking up with smouldering-eyed Wyatt Jones. Instead, after her father drops the bombshell that he's leaving them, she's exiled to a remote Georgia island with her heartbroken mother, no phone service and no chance of romance.

Until she meets Jeremiah. Free-spirited, mysterious and beautiful, their chemistry is immediate and irresistible. They both know that whatever they have can only last the summer, but maybe one summer is enough...

My thoughts.

Summary: A female main character counting down to graduation, who loves writing and aspires to be a writer. Her father is a great cook, her mother a successful author. She starts the book as a virgin, meets a boy and has a whirlwind romance falling for him, and loses her virginity to him.

Am I describing All The Bright Places (ATBP) or Breathless? In the author's note Niven expressed ATBP was a very personal book to her and she self-inserted a lot of details. But doing it twice? Cringey, debut, wattpad-level type writing. There were too many overlapping details. In the acknowledgements Niven again admits this story sprung from life experiences, of her parents separating, moving far from her childhood home town and a holiday to an island where she had a whirlwind romance.

There is too much writing in this book. Claude waffles on and on about her emotions, perhaps this was an attempt to make Claude feel young, but she also has too much self-awareness. I have not personally experienced parental divorce and I understand that does affect the children involved. But I got so annoyed at Claude because I felt she was making it all about her. It was not her heartbreak, it's between her parents. Claude felt very selfish, with the way she thought about her parents' separation and her best friend beginning a relationship.

Partly I think that I am not the right age for this novel anymore. Even so, I'd like to think I could appreciate a well-written book not aimed at me as the target audience. Writing a female character that masturbates was cool, and exploring what it can be like losing your virginity are great topics to cover. But these nuggets of gold were hidden between so much selfish inner-monologue that they couldn't carry this book.

This book has very little discernible plot and a complete non-ending. It doesn't feel finished. It is a word vomit of emotions and descriptions on the page. An ending where a moral was imparted could have rescued this book, alas the book is purposeless. It could have had a message that friendships are not lesser or greater just because of the duration. That a boy you knew for a summer could be as needed, loved and impactful as a friendship you've had for a lifetime. That just because it was short lived and you never see them again, doesn't mean it was worth less. None of these vague themes were concluded in a meaningful way to give this book some value.

This is one of those books that I read and I think, if this can get published, then I can get published. Some sections feel like a personal message, or inside joke, to the person Niven spent a summer with. The idea of this is sweet, but not great reading.

I don't recommend this book to read. Perhaps if you like fluffy and fun nonsense about a self-absorbed character, then you would enjoy this one. Reading this made me wish I had the money to spend a month long holiday on a remote island, disconnected from the rest of the world. Just don't write a book about your time there. Even if you had a blast, it doesn't make for a good book.

TL:DR

Jennifer Niven word vomits thoughts and feelings, pretending to be eighteen in a self-insert novel that has too many similarities to Violet to ignore. The moral is never fully expressed and there's no plot to keep you invested in reading, just summer days with a hot boy love interest.