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ariellesbooked 's review for:
Breathless
by Jennifer Niven
"You can't tell me who I can and can't talk to about this. You don't get to tell me the world is ending and then ask me not to share it."
I was really close to flat-out giving this book a 2 and have instead decided to round it up to a 2.5. I saw someone reviewed this with the quote I've just put at the top and it had me thinking about a lot of the things that [a:Jennifer Niven|45592|Jennifer Niven|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1601577087p2/45592.jpg] did right with [b:Breathless|51401773|Breathless|Jennifer Niven|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1589393573l/51401773._SY75_.jpg|76070420].
To preface all of this, I want to say that I really loved [b:All the Bright Places|18460392|All the Bright Places|Jennifer Niven|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1404331702l/18460392._SY75_.jpg|26113532] and enjoyed [b:Holding Up the Universe|28686840|Holding Up the Universe|Jennifer Niven|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1463377718l/28686840._SY75_.jpg|48860979]. I was excited to see that Niven had a new book and didn't really pay a lot of attention to the premise before purchasing. That's on me. I'm definitely outside of the targeted demographic (which I would say is older-YA... maybe even New Adult).
Some things I think Niven did well? Her depiction of divorce felt fairly spot-on. The quote mentioned above is in respect to the protagonist (Claude)'s parents breaking the news of their separation to her. As a child of divorce, I definitely empathized with what Claude was going through. I also appreciated Niven's attempts to create more inclusive content for her readers. Some great points were made about virginity as a social construct, sex and body positivity, and consent between partners.
What didn't work for me? The island legends/myths side story she attempted to weave into the primary narrative. While I think I would have normally enjoyed this sort of thing, I don't feel it was executed very well. I also found that some of the dialogue was off-putting and inorganic. There were times when Claude felt very childish and other times when she was absolutely not speaking the words of an eighteen year-old.
Probably not a book I'd recommend, or one I'd read again. But it might work for some people!