You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
I finished The Air You Breathe minutes ago and I feel like I want to cry from the beauty and rawness of these characters. I also feel this book was longer at 442 pages than it needed to be, although that may just be my personal preference for shorter books. But the writing was breathtaking.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was filled with high-stakes and incredible characters. Graça and Dor are best friends with a shaky yet deep past. They love each other in the most complicated way, and it was a pleasure to meet these characters. The other characters felt like stock players, and the same argument happens in every chapter. The narration is inconsistent in its tone and form, and the prose fights against the incredible characters.
2 friends of different classes experience friendship, fame, and downfall in their native Brazil. This book does a great job of exploring the nuance of female friendship and how sometimes you meet people that will change your life forever.
This book is intense. It draws you into the world of the two protagonists, makes you think about music in an incredibly evocative way, and then quickly ends. Well, maybe not quickly - it is almost 500 pages after all. I loved the descriptions the author used throughout the book. You're able to imagine what life is like at a big sugar plantation, at a boarding school, out on the streets singing outside a radio station, backstage before performances, in a backyard just singing, on a set in Hollywood. Really detailed, but not in a wordsmithy way. The author did a good job of exploring relationships and their complications. I've never been in a band or in a group that goes on tour, but her descriptions of the ebb and flow and complications of those relationships were very good.
This book made me want to listen to samba and to hear the differences in its various forms. It also gave me a slight history lesson on Brazil and the USA's involvement in its politics.
Overall - very well written book. Would read again, and would read more books by this author.
This book made me want to listen to samba and to hear the differences in its various forms. It also gave me a slight history lesson on Brazil and the USA's involvement in its politics.
Overall - very well written book. Would read again, and would read more books by this author.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Ay Dores! Your pain and endurance were etched in every word you shared in this enthralling tale. I know that this was written by Frances de Pontes Peebles but it felt like Dores was so real. I hated having to pause the book and miss out on the tale that Dores was sharing. It felt so important to capture every word of her enigmatic life. I will admit that in the beginning, I felt the story was going slowly, I wanted it to pick up its pace but once it did it never lost its momentum. The beginning was crucial in understanding the foundation that made up Dores and Graça, the experiences that united them and the differences that truly put them on separate paths in how they understood life. This is a book about friendship, put through so many challenges and obstacles. It is a love story, unlike anything I’ve read before because of how entangled it was with a deep and toxic friendship. I had never read a book set in Brazil and I loved that as I followed Dores and Graça's journey I was also able to glimpse important historical events that were sprinkled in the background. To my curious mind, this sprinkling led to searches as to what was going on in that time period.
Dores comes from nothing, all her life she has been made aware of how unwanted she is, while Graça is a spoiled brat, the daughter of a despondent sugar baron. They both seek to escape a life that pigeonholes them when all they want is to make music. While Dores is able to find escape with Graça, she is also overshadowed by her enormous ego. There are instances where we are shown that Graça has low self-esteem that she hides behind her vanity but it’s truly not enough to engender sympathy, especially when we follow Dores’ trajectory. Time again we see Dores having to take a step back to allow the spotlight to fall of her friend. I’m saying a lot but there’s so much that comes bursting from my heart when it comes to this amazing book. I fell in love with the words that Peebles shared. This story swooped me up and has had a claim on me ever since I read it. Dores is the storyteller of this book, she is a wonderful guide that takes us to her childhood, through her struggles trying to make it with her band, through Hollywood, to an event that changed the course of her life, tinged the rest of it and how she coped after this. The songs that interspersed this story felt so real and I could feel them vibrating within my heart. It’s magic that an author is able to do this. It’s not just a transportation of your mind but of your whole body. Your body feels the beat, while the songs reverberate in your ears. I highly recommend you read this!
Dores comes from nothing, all her life she has been made aware of how unwanted she is, while Graça is a spoiled brat, the daughter of a despondent sugar baron. They both seek to escape a life that pigeonholes them when all they want is to make music. While Dores is able to find escape with Graça, she is also overshadowed by her enormous ego. There are instances where we are shown that Graça has low self-esteem that she hides behind her vanity but it’s truly not enough to engender sympathy, especially when we follow Dores’ trajectory. Time again we see Dores having to take a step back to allow the spotlight to fall of her friend. I’m saying a lot but there’s so much that comes bursting from my heart when it comes to this amazing book. I fell in love with the words that Peebles shared. This story swooped me up and has had a claim on me ever since I read it. Dores is the storyteller of this book, she is a wonderful guide that takes us to her childhood, through her struggles trying to make it with her band, through Hollywood, to an event that changed the course of her life, tinged the rest of it and how she coped after this. The songs that interspersed this story felt so real and I could feel them vibrating within my heart. It’s magic that an author is able to do this. It’s not just a transportation of your mind but of your whole body. Your body feels the beat, while the songs reverberate in your ears. I highly recommend you read this!
I couldn’t get into it at this time. Maybe I’ll try again sometime.