bookwoods 's review for:

How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer

4.0

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Rating/reviewing short story collections is always a bit hard, which is why I don´t have that much to say about this one - it was just really good. About half of the stories I absolutely loved, the other half I didn´t find quite as incredible. Though the prose stayed beautiful and very observant throughout the collection. Orringer is clearly a talented short story writer, she can fit so much in just a few dozen pages. All of the stories focus on young girls and the difficult things they have to deal with. Some of the themes addressed are death, friendships, illness, love, jealousy - a wide range of different emotions. Family relations also play a big part in every story. Some of the things that happened felt a bit extreme, but then again, life can be quite extreme and I did find How to Breathe Underwater to be a compelling piece of literature.