Title: The Air You Breathe
Author: Frances de Pontes Peebles
Number of Pages: 449 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publication Date: August 21, 2018
Purchase: Thriftbooks//Amazon//Book Depository
My Rating: 4/5 stars
Synopsis from Goodreads:
The story of an intense female friendship fueled by affection, envy and pride–and each woman’s fear that she would be nothing without the other.
Skinny, nine-year-old orphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes everything. Graça, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is clever, well fed, pretty, and thrillingly ill behaved. Born to wildly different worlds, Dores and Graça quickly bond over shared mischief, and then, on a deeper level, over music.
One has a voice like a songbird; the other feels melodies in her soul and composes lyrics to match. Music will become their shared passion, the source of their partnership and their rivalry, and for each, the only way out of the life to which each was born. But only one of the two is destined to be a star. Their intimate, volatile bond will determine each of their fortunes–and haunt their memories.
Traveling from Brazil’s inland sugar plantations to the rowdy streets of Lapa in Rio de Janeiro, from Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood back to the irresistible drumbeat of home, The Air You Breathe unfurls a moving portrait of a lifelong friendship–its unparalleled rewards and lasting losses–and considers what we owe to the relationships that shape our lives.
My Thoughts:
I think this is the oldest book on my TBR. It was the first book I chose for Book of the Month. This is also a very common edition to find in all of my local Goodwill’s and it is at least three or four copies. I just found that really interesting.
This novel is purely character driven. Peebles has interwoven two very complex characters to create a beautiful story. This book is told from Dores’ point of view as she reflects on her past and the part that Graca/Sofia plays in her life.
There is so much reflection on music. The Samba is the main music that is throughout the story and the time periods. The setting is written to the beat of Samba. I could almost hear Samba as I was reading.
Where it looses the star is that the beautiful story is bogged down by the amount of detail. With the amount of detail in this novel, I felt like it left little to the imagination which is not always a bad thing but I wanted to let my mind wander about the setting. Detail is not always bad but there can be too much of it at the same time, almost enough that it was overwhelming.
This is an amazing historical fiction novel. Anyone with an appreciation or love of historic fiction needs this in their lives. It is also one of the novels that you need to read to fully understand the feelings.
Have you read this? If so, what are your thoughts?
What books are you trying to tackles this month? Any recommendations?
Life in Books 