The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles– 464 pages Audio
Book Blurb:
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.
My Review: 4 stars
The Air You Breathe was completely off my radar until someone mentioned it to me on my Tell Me What You’re Reading Tuesday on Facebook. I was so excited about a new title that got rave reviews and wait for it…. I haven’t read it yet! Note that is a literary novel and reads as such.
I have a fondness for novels where a friendship is born between two people that on paper shouldn’t be friends. In this case it’s an orphan/slave girl and the daughter of a sugar baron that form the most unlikely of friendships. This became a friendship out of necessity and boredom but grew into a capricious, passionate and intimate relationship. They were complete opposites – one with the a wonderful voice, the other creates the lyrics, one with beauty, the other plain, one rich, the other not; yet music brought them together. Their love of Samba and performance became an escape as well as a livelihood.
This book is reminiscent of My Brilliant Friend strictly based on the lush writing and the plot revolving around a friendship. I had to highlight much of this book as pure poetry rested inside the pages. I found this novel to be character driven and would consider the music as its own character for it played a role in so much of their lives. I believe this book could have been shorter as some parts were slightly overwritten and there were parts that could’ve been excluded to tell the same story.
The reader can find a bit of themselves and/or their friends in this novel, as this friendship was peppered with envy, honor, distrust, love, respect, fame, attitude, understanding, music, sexuality, jealously, and adoration. Most importantly however, was loyalty. Through the worst and the best of times their unbreakable allegiance stood strong. This made their relationship stick as unthinkable as it may seem on paper.
Quotes I Liked:
You are not you without me. And everything we are, together, is what we’re meant to be.”
-“If remembering tells us who we are, then forgetting keeps us sane. If we recalled every song we’d ever heard, every touch we’d ever felt, every pain no matter how small, every sadness no matter how petty, every joy no matter how selfish, we could surely lose our minds.”
-I was awed by the avarice of that cane fire. It was beautiful in its constant need, in its unbridled hunger. I watched it burn, its heat pounding against my skin, and knew that we were alike, that fire and me. We wanted more than we’d been given, and we always would”
-“People who attribute success to luck have never truly been successful. Luck may place an opportunity in your lap, but only a constant, obsessive attention transforms that opportunity into some kind of meaningful success.”
-“Music had triggered this sickness but it was also my only cure.”
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