A review by pikasqueaks
Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally
4.0
This book is the standout for me with Mirand Kenneally's books. There are some concerning common threads in all of the ones that I've read so far, but I have to say that I can tell the author's writing is maturing, and she's getting to know her characters a little bit more along the way.
Annie is a typical girl. She's not great at running, but after her long term boyfriend dies before he's able to complete his first marathon, she decides to finish on his behalf. I thought the premise of the story was super cute, and definitely something memorable. Death of the significant other doesn't happen much in YA, and when it does it's kinda more dramatic than anything else. BAB takes it in a positive, healing direction, rather than an angstfest. We do get some overwhelming guilt that isn't explored as well as it could be , but the overall focus on the story is not emotions.
The author also manages to work in some great class struggles in with the story, which I adored. Annie is from a working class / poor little area, lives in a trailer park, and became distanced from her best friend after the friend moved up in class due to her mother's marriage.
What was lacking from this book was some kind of self-awareness for Annie. She's not very self-aware about anything that she does. She's very hypercritical of herself (beats herself up over making out with Jere, the love interest), but it's not obvious where it comes from.
Jere is a weird love interest. He's pretty unique in his presentation, the adrenaline junkie who slows down and falls in love. I didn't understand why he fell in love with Annie, though. The only thing they had in common was running, and besides that, it didn't really seem like there was anything there. It felt like they were suited better to be friends, even though because of his blah blah abs and muscles and all of that (yawn, rolling my eyes, wondering how exactly Jere gets so ripped without heavy weight lifting? he does extreme sports and then stops and then he starts running all the time and somehow his runner's body is just different than everyone else and he's ripped? ok, sure...)
I enjoyed Annie's progress in terms of moving on from her dead boyfriend, letting Jere in, and moving on to college. We don't see a lot of YA where the kids actually go to college, so it was interesting to see that worked in. I kind of wish it'd all been set like that, because the whole thing with Annie's mom and brother was a snooze.
Other reviews mention the cameos from the other books, but I honestly didn't catch on to any of that. None of Kenneally's characters have been paticularly memorable -- even Annie is kind of a stock character without a strong personality who just happens to exist in this world where things are happening around her. But I think she was the strongest one yet.
Annie is a typical girl. She's not great at running, but after her long term boyfriend dies before he's able to complete his first marathon, she decides to finish on his behalf. I thought the premise of the story was super cute, and definitely something memorable. Death of the significant other doesn't happen much in YA, and when it does it's kinda more dramatic than anything else. BAB takes it in a positive, healing direction, rather than an angstfest. We do get some overwhelming guilt that isn't explored as well as it could be , but the overall focus on the story is not emotions.
The author also manages to work in some great class struggles in with the story, which I adored. Annie is from a working class / poor little area, lives in a trailer park, and became distanced from her best friend after the friend moved up in class due to her mother's marriage.
What was lacking from this book was some kind of self-awareness for Annie. She's not very self-aware about anything that she does. She's very hypercritical of herself (beats herself up over making out with Jere, the love interest), but it's not obvious where it comes from.
Jere is a weird love interest. He's pretty unique in his presentation, the adrenaline junkie who slows down and falls in love. I didn't understand why he fell in love with Annie, though. The only thing they had in common was running, and besides that, it didn't really seem like there was anything there. It felt like they were suited better to be friends, even though because of his blah blah abs and muscles and all of that (yawn, rolling my eyes, wondering how exactly Jere gets so ripped without heavy weight lifting? he does extreme sports and then stops and then he starts running all the time and somehow his runner's body is just different than everyone else and he's ripped? ok, sure...)
I enjoyed Annie's progress in terms of moving on from her dead boyfriend, letting Jere in, and moving on to college. We don't see a lot of YA where the kids actually go to college, so it was interesting to see that worked in. I kind of wish it'd all been set like that, because the whole thing with Annie's mom and brother was a snooze.
Other reviews mention the cameos from the other books, but I honestly didn't catch on to any of that. None of Kenneally's characters have been paticularly memorable -- even Annie is kind of a stock character without a strong personality who just happens to exist in this world where things are happening around her. But I think she was the strongest one yet.