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A review by luthereadingqueen
The Breaths We Take by Huston Piner
3.0
3.5 stars
The Breaths We Take has one of the sweetest friendship I've ever read about. In this book we have Ben as our main character and he has three best friends: Ted, Hope and Doris. Their relationship gets complicated when Doris starts playing matchmaker with Ted and Hope but regardless, Doris and Ben's relationship is so wholesome. We get to see them grow together and supporting each other even if they don't complete agree on everything.
Other problems arise when Ben catches feelings for Ted's brother, Adrian. In my opinion, Adrian was really sweet and charming even though sometimes he acted as a spoiled kid lol. I liked their dinamic because it felt real and deep but it also made me angry the homophobia we could see surrounding them. That was one of the factors that made me remember this book is supposed to happen in the 90s and not now because some things were said that today wouldn't be acceptable (I'm sure homophobic people still say things like that but regardless you get the point) And another detail was that no one had cellphones, at first I was weird out by why they waited to get home to call someone and then I got it, that maybe cellphones weren't as popular back then.
Another positive aspect of this book was the writing, I actually could feel like I was inside of the book watching everything happen around me. Oh, I didn't mentioned it before but Ben and his family are Jewish so there were a couple of words used that I didn't know what they meant but fortunately at the back of the book there's a glosary which makes everything easier to comprehend.
Now onto the not so positive aspects of this book, the main issue I had was that everyone seem to get married to their highschool sweetheart. It was so weird to read and it really pushed me out of the story because it just didn't seem legit to me. I'm sure there are a couple of people who did but not everyone like this book showed. I'm just not really into stories were people only love one person for their entire life.
Then there was a conflict with Ben's grandfather and his health. During this time Ben talked about how worried and scared he was but I didn't believe him at all. I've been through a similar situation recently and I definitely spent more time with my family than what Ben did, his sister came from college for a weekend and even her was more helpful in the situation.
And lastly, the ending was very slowed paced for me. There was a tiny conflict almost at the end that I feel was there just to make the book bigger because it didn't actually affect how things were going before it.
Then the actual last chapter was very quick and I liked it a lot because of that and also because it showed how things are not always perfect all the time but we can still get a happy ever after.
The Breaths We Take has one of the sweetest friendship I've ever read about. In this book we have Ben as our main character and he has three best friends: Ted, Hope and Doris. Their relationship gets complicated when Doris starts playing matchmaker with Ted and Hope but regardless, Doris and Ben's relationship is so wholesome. We get to see them grow together and supporting each other even if they don't complete agree on everything.
Other problems arise when Ben catches feelings for Ted's brother, Adrian. In my opinion, Adrian was really sweet and charming even though sometimes he acted as a spoiled kid lol. I liked their dinamic because it felt real and deep but it also made me angry the homophobia we could see surrounding them. That was one of the factors that made me remember this book is supposed to happen in the 90s and not now because some things were said that today wouldn't be acceptable (I'm sure homophobic people still say things like that but regardless you get the point) And another detail was that no one had cellphones, at first I was weird out by why they waited to get home to call someone and then I got it, that maybe cellphones weren't as popular back then.
Another positive aspect of this book was the writing, I actually could feel like I was inside of the book watching everything happen around me. Oh, I didn't mentioned it before but Ben and his family are Jewish so there were a couple of words used that I didn't know what they meant but fortunately at the back of the book there's a glosary which makes everything easier to comprehend.
Now onto the not so positive aspects of this book, the main issue I had was that everyone seem to get married to their highschool sweetheart. It was so weird to read and it really pushed me out of the story because it just didn't seem legit to me. I'm sure there are a couple of people who did but not everyone like this book showed. I'm just not really into stories were people only love one person for their entire life.
Then there was a conflict with Ben's grandfather and his health. During this time Ben talked about how worried and scared he was but I didn't believe him at all. I've been through a similar situation recently and I definitely spent more time with my family than what Ben did, his sister came from college for a weekend and even her was more helpful in the situation.
And lastly, the ending was very slowed paced for me. There was a tiny conflict almost at the end that I feel was there just to make the book bigger because it didn't actually affect how things were going before it.
Then the actual last chapter was very quick and I liked it a lot because of that and also because it showed how things are not always perfect all the time but we can still get a happy ever after.