Reviews

The Selfless Act of Breathing by J.J. Bola

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hemingway23's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

bookishrobbie's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

bookapotamus's review against another edition

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3.0

This was such a beautiful, lyrical piece of writing. that follows a Congolese-British Londoner who decides to go on one last adventure in the United States, determined to end his life once his savings run out.

I enjoyed the words, the thoughts, and the feelings that went into this story so much. But I just didn't feel as much as I had hoped I would. It was such a heartbreaking and sad premise - but Michael was a bit of an enigma to me. But maybe that was the point?

It was really hard to connect with Michael - we barely "meet" him and don't know much about him as we are kind of thrown into the story and left to put the pieces together about his life through snippets of experiences. He was sort of a stranger - even by time I finished the book, I felt like I still didn't know him well. The story jumped around a lot between place and time that I couldn't fully immerse myself into what was happening.

I also felt like the big "reveal" as to what he was struggling with was very difficult to understand - as to why he was so depressed and sad. I do understand sometimes there doesn't need to be a big reason - but the direction of the story seemed to hint that there was.

I think the plot was very surface level and it added a lot of confusion as to who Michael was and what he was feeling. I wish there had been more internal character development. And I just couldn't figure out how he made it so far and did so many things - knowing basically no-one and with so little money. So many questions and mystery - that was never really answered.

I did read it very fast though. The writing was phenomenal and I did enjoy the story - I just wish we weren't thrown into the thick of it to figure out all the pieces and how they fit together.

readbydanni's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

brattyreads's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

lostinthelibrary's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

You can tell this author is a poet. There are some beautiful passages of prose that gave a lot more insight to the motivations of the main character than anything in the plot did. These moments of introspection were the highlight of the novel and very much captured the weight of mental illness.

However, I felt that the plot did not live up to it's intriguing premise and was a mixed bag. I felt like the author did a good job at writing what he knew well (inner London) but struggled with capturing the atmosphere in the US scenes which made the book feel very uneven. A lot of characters make choices that are not fully explored and it overall left me a bit unsatisfied.

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