I loved Jennifer Niven's 'All the Bright Places' when I read it years ago so was excited to read this book and it didn't disappoint.

Sometimes I found it difficult to motivate myself to pick it up but I think perhaps that is due to not reading many YA books anymore. However, once I got into I found myself enjoying it even more.

The story and characters was relatable and this is something I always look for in a book.

I found the plot of this book a little odd. I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to feel, and I really didn't relate to the characters.

The plot seemed to be all over the place for me. It was going down the 'teen high school' drama route at the beginning, with graduation, love and road trips. I was beginning to think I had read this before, as it just didn't feel very original. Then when the dad comes in with his news, the book changes. It then feels more like a holiday book, then with the mums research I thought it would turn into a mystery book. Then it became a romance again. I just didn't connect to any of it.
I found the central character of Claude incredibly selfish too. Also, considering she was supposed to be eighteen, I found her incredibly young.

The only positive I can take from this is the beautiful imagery of the island. I fell in love with the location more than the characters!

Thank you, Jennifer Niven, for writing the book that I needed as a teenager, and showing that, even though the results may not be exactly what you want, you have to be open to the possibilities life offers.
Breathless starts slowly, and while I was enjoying it I didn’t think it was going to cause the emotional gut-punch it did. It’s a book about love, learning to accept yourself and to have the confidence to take risks as they hurt but can bring wonderful things.
The main character in this, Claude, is a curious character, who definitely grew on me. She starts the book in a fairly safe place with certain expectations, then learns that things don’t always go to plan...but it can be okay. She is definitely feeling uncertain as she’s about to head to college, her best friend has started a relationship she didn’t know about and things are changing/she’s losing control of the things happening around her. Her summer begins in an unsettling way, with her parents announcing they are going to split up and she is expected to spend the summer on an island with her mother.
Cut off from everything she knows, this actually opens Claude to the possibility of new experiences. She takes solace in the immediacy of the wonderful natural environment around her, she learns to ride a bike and she starts a relationship with someone who changes her in ways she couldn’t imagine.
It would be so easy to reduce this to a summer romance category and make what we watch between Claude and Miah seem trite. That would, I think, be missing the point. It might not be exactly what we’d wish for either, but in its own way it’s beautiful.
I will be urging everyone to read this upon its September 2020 release, and would like to thank the publishers and NetGalley for letting me read it early.

I highly recommend this story which I think is best suited to a teen audience. It is about an 18 year old girl; Claudine who is about to graduate from High School and spend the summer with her friends before going to College in New York. However a shattering event in her family means a change of plans and she is forced to spend summer with her Mother on an island in Georgia where her Mother's family come from. The island and it's past provide a fascinating and mysterious setting. It is here that Claudine meets Jeremiah and the fireworks begin. This is a modern day romance and also involves Claudine growing as a person during her time spent away from her friends and finding out how to deal with challenges in life. I was pleased to read that there are autobiographical aspects to the story from Jennifer Niven's own life. A fantastic story that was hard to put down.

From the outset I liked the main characters and thought the readability of Claud and Saz would be enjoyed by young adults. The various relationships explored throughout including dealing with parental separation and friendships as well as first sexual experiences was depicted perfectly. The tone for young adults was just right and I know the young people I teach will enjoy reading about these characters. It was nice to see same- sex relationships not treated like something rare or revolutionary but just as another normal part of being a person and I think this is important for our young pupils to see.. I felt this book was moving and compelled me throughout and I will be recommending to my pupils in September, and to staff teaching PSHEE too.

Breathless was the perfect book to see me through this heatwave! I have been in a bit of a reading slump during lockdown but YA romances have really pulled me out and this one was no different - so many swoon worthy moments! I have read Holding Up the Universe and All the Bright Places (both of which I adored) but this one has become my favourite!

Quite by accident I was flicking through my Netgalley offerings a few weeks ago, and selected a random handful of YA coming of age titles I’d not heard of. Jennifer Niven’s BREATHLESS review is here because of that happenstance.

I’m not sure I can convey how much I love this book. Except to say that I never wanted it to end. And I love that it didn’t.

Remember Judy Blume’s Forever? How, for an entire generation, it was a groundbreaking book which actually tackled being a teenager, walking us by the hand through an honest experience of first love, first sex, and all the loaded emotions that went alongside?

My BREATHLESS review? Well. It’s a new generation’s Forever. Except it’s better. More inclusive, more mature, more balanced, more insightful, more joyful, more wild, more honest… It’s a beautiful, wonderful, exciting breathless bike ride through a baked hot summer crammed and bursting with friendship, first love, adulthood, nostalgia, family… and so many beautiful words.

In fact, it’s far far more than my pre-teen self reading Forever all agog. It’s older, deeper, more joyful and more visceral.
In 1988 I sat at the start of the summer holidays with my friends and watched Dirty Dancing on VHS. It was a pivotal moment in my teens. I watched Baby coming of age, finding out who she was, what she wanted, standing up for what she believed in, saw her and her sister discover each other again, and of course the wonderful sizzling hair-standing physical chemistry.
All through that long hot summer I watched it again, and again, and again; always smiling, angry, breathless, anticipatory.

And that’s the exact feeling I got this week, thirty years later, reading BREATHLESS.

Claudine’s summer is a lot. Like, really a LOT.
Jennifer Niven seamlessly winds the tangled threads of Claudine’s relationship with each of her parents, her best friend far away, the new life she is suddenly thrust into, and of course The Boy. (Oh, Miah).
There’s no sugar-coating any of the stress. There’s no hiding the angry, sullen teenager. Nor the deep, aching pain as she navigates this strange new world. My heart ached for Claudine as much as I zinged with joy for her. Breathed the lightness, the exhilarating freedom along with her. There’s no annoyingly neat answers and no easy endings. It’s as perfectly, wonderfully, beautifully messy as real life gets.

The experience of ‘the first time’ is quite brilliant. Funny, tender, and imperfectly perfect. I wanted to quote a scene at the end of that chapter, but it would be a spoiler, so I can’t. Just know that I actually cheered out loud at her parting shots as she left.

As an adult, BREATHLESS made me feel again the anguished whirl that is the shedding of childhood, the painful acceptance of how the world is versus how you want the world to be. I felt again the tingling secret smile of first love, the first time you feel way down deep inside the difference between a teen crush and the actual thing. The certainty, the rush of power – and the simultaneously terrifying vulnerability. The bone heavy pain of heartbreak – and not just the pain of being broken by The Boy.

Oh, and I loved her relationship with her Mum. Properly loved them every time they were together.

And I’m shoving BREATHLESS into my teen daughter’s hands as hard as I can. Because here is a book which not only deals with all those important issues in a way she’ll relate hard to, but does so from the viewpoint of a wonderful, strong, flawed, vulnerable, overthinking, impulsive smart girl. A girl I’d be thrilled for my daughter to emulate.
Claudine knows her own worth. She makes up her own mind. She’s unsure – and though she’s in need of advice and help, ultimately she understands she’s writing her own future, and she remains beguilingly honest with us, her readers.

The whole book rings with the solid truth of a huge bell* . Anyone with friends or family far away will cry a little inside when Claudine is on the phone to her long-distance best friend. Claudine’s broken, and desperately needs her friend, who assures her

“You’re not alone, I’m right there with you”.

and Claudine notes “…it’s what you say to your best friend when you don’t know what to say, and all you want to do is be there for them and make the bad things go away”

Which, as a person with a tight group of the very dearest online friends, scattered across the globe, I felt the truth of as a sharp stab, remembering all the times over the years I’ve felt and said the same.

So the sum of my BREATHLESS review? It’s simply this:

Mums – read this, and remember.
Teens – read this; listen, learn, know you’re not alone, that it’s okay. And that you get to choose.

“…open yourself up to love and possibility, to almostness and maybe. Use your voice. Let others in. Choose your future. Choose your body. Choose yourself. And go out there and write your life.”
Jennifer Niven


*(unsurprising when you read the Jennifer Niven’s acknowledgements. Which everyone should do – it’ll make you love this story even more)

I’m not sure what to make of this book. I loved the setting, and the actual storyline itself was great, but it didn’t make me feel it, like I wanted it to. I never quite got the emotions particularly deeply as I have with Jennifer Niven’s previous titles. Maybe just not for me - to be honest, I’m not the right age for the target audience. 😀

A beautiful and timeless tale of first love and heartbreak, learning through living and a lesson in romantics.

A powerful YA coming of age novel dealing with some powerful issues facing today's young people: Divorce, sex, anxiety and suicide to name a few. Set on a beautiful remote island that forces the characters to move away from the pressures of modern technology and connect with real humans. Jeremiah and Claudine were special characters and the ending is heartbreaking. Don't think I could read with students as i'd be in floods of tear but definitely one to recommend they read on their own.

This was a sweet and modern take on the 'summer romance' novel - I enjoyed it! It felt grown-up yet still age appropriate for a younger audience. I loved the setting - I could see and feel the island - Jennifer Niven's writing took me there fully.

I loved it. A perfect summer read.

As a YA novel I really enjoyed it and loved the romance and all the other plot points. As a teacher, I wouldn't be able to recommend it to my students.

Sometimes things end, even if you don't want them to..."

This is how I felt about this book. I love it more than words and it's one of the best books I've read, ever! I've never highlighted so many passages in a book before.
I feel like I was meant to read this book, that somehow the universe knew I needed it. I only started NetGalley a few weeks ago and this popped up. I loved All the Bright Places but I didn't expect to get approved for this review.
When I finished I was a mess. Emotionally and literally - with tears, snot and body-wracking sobs. My heart was sore; it's still sore. I've even pre-ordered my own copy because I need this book on my shelf.

As Claude graduates high school she finds her world is suddenly turned upside down and the floor has been yanked from beneath her. She's feeling lost and ready to just spend the summer coasting on a remote island with her Mum. What she doesn't plan for is Jeremiah Crew, a boy that will make her reevaluate and face her problem whilst also teaching her how to fall in love with life again.

A fantastic five-star read that's so very relatable. I love how much this book means personally to Jennifer, as she explains in the acknowledgements, and reading that made me ball all the more.
It touches on many relatable issues, such as virginity, sexuality, divorce, adultery and choice. It doesn't portray the characters as perfect but instead as human - mistakes and all.
I'd recommend this for young adults, new adults and even us older readers. We can all find something in this book for ourselves. For me it was a nostalgia, so effortlessly brought to life by Jennifer's favoulous writing style.

This was my first Jennifer Niven book but I can already see why she is a hit with young adult readers. The plot is about Claude, our protagonist who was supposed to be going on a road trip with her best friend Saz after graduating. Instead, her parents are getting a divorce and Claude is stuck on an island off the coast of Georgia with her mother for the summer. It is only when she meets Jeremiah Crew that she is able to find a way through her grief and mature in her approach to family, love and sex.

Niven has a nice writing style and vividly portrays the island, illustrating it as an isolated paradise. In the author's note, she comments how this place is based on her own experiences which is why Niven is able to bring island life alive so beautifully for the reader.

At first, Claude is self-centred and quite infuriating in her immaturity. However, this allows Claude clear character development, particularly as she explores sex for the first time. There are some important messages in here for teen readers about virginity, consent and what it means to be in a sexual relationship. I found the portrayal of some of these discussions very on the nose but are written in a way which will hopefully resonate with younger readers.

Overall, Niven's book has some nice messages which will be important for teen readers to hear but the story was not compelling enough to really hold my attention. A large portion of the narrative is Claude contemplating her feelings in place of driving the plot forward. This, along with the disappointing lack of closure at the novel's ending, made this a pleasant but 3 star read for me. I will still be recommending this for my older students.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The floor that Claude has built her life on is suddenly pulled from her when her dad tells her that her parents’ seemingly happy marriage is over.
Instead of the road trip she had planned with her best friend, her mother takes her to a remote island with no cell service and no Saz. Claude digs her heels in and is determined that she will simply sit out her 35 day break after her escape plans are crushed by the divide that grows between her and her best friend Saz. Claude wonders how many more of her “floors” will be taken away from her. At least she knows that Jeremiah Crew has no plans on staying around long enough for Claude to cling onto.
- He says, “Here’s the thing. I don’t want you getting too crazy about me because I’m only here for the next few weeks.”
- “I’ll do my best.”
I really found myself in Claude, lost and vulnerable after everything she has ever known has collapsed around her. She embodies almost every teenager who has yet to find who they are after their childhood, if they can ever marry the old them and new them together. Miah, too. He’s relatable and far from perfect but perfect enough for Claude’s opposite. Claude wants things to stay the same forever, Miah wants to keep moving. The push and pull of these characters, the way that Claude isn’t some angel who never puts a foot wrong, the fact they’re flawed teenagers who just want to find a home. Urgh, it made me feel things. Many, many times I put my kindle down just to breathe through the perfectly captured thoughts. I wish this book had been around when I was a teenager. I admit that I wanted the ending to be different. I wanted answers about Claude’s dad, Saz, Miah and his mother, for it to all be neat and tidy but that’s not how life is. If Breathless had ended any other way, I think I’d have been disappointed. It was perfect for Miah and Claude. Although, if Jennifer Niven is reading this, please write a sequel. Or at the very least a few chapters on what happened next. I need to know if Miah stayed true to his final words.

Claude and her best friend Saz are about to graduate from school (American), planning a road trip before they go to college. Claude loves writing and would like to become an author. She thinks she has life sorted. Then Saz tells her she feels more for another friend than just friendship and their relationship has developed. Claude is hurt she didn’t tell her immediately, especially as they have discussed what sex would be like so many times. But then she finds herself keeping a secret from others after her parents ask her not to make it public they are splitting up. Her Mum wants Claude to accompany her to a remote island to discover more about a distant relative who shot herself in a house, now a ruin.
As a dutiful daughter and stung by Saz’s closeness with another, Claude leaves with her mother, and discovers they can’t even phone one another as phones only work in one spot on the island.
There are however, a handful of young people helping in the restaurants to chat to - plus Jeremiah Crew. Miah is a local trail guide with a passion for photography, a past in which he acknowledges he chose wrong paths and a family he feels responsible for back on the mainland. The pair are drawn together. Miah warns Claude she mustn’t fall for him as they will be going their separate ways at the end of the Summer. Claude promises this as that’s what her head agrees. However, her heart doesn’t.
I read Jennifer Niven’s first book praised in all quarters. I preferred her second book, but this book by far is my favourite. There is an explanation at the end about what this book means to the author, and this comes through in the novel. It is heartfelt and beautiful. The prose is poetic, as befits a novel about a writer.
The book addresses many issues – jealousy in friendships, first love, virginity and consent, as well as resentment against a parent who seems to have lied and put themselves first. None of the characters are perfect, including the grown-ups but that is life and Claude discovers more about herself, as well as realising how she must help her friend and parents.
Can the young pair find a resolution? This ending is perfect.

This is a lovely coming of age story which is great for YA readers who are or have been through the traumatic event of parents separating. Personally I would have benefited from this book as a teenager and it has helped me review some of those old feelings of the floor being taken from under me when my parents separated - when you have no clues it could happen and having to deal with those feelings. I guarantee this book will help!

Some of the story does not tie up neatly in my opinion BUT the basis of the story is beautifully written and descriptive - I could picture the island and all the people and felt like I was right with them.

I feel there is another book in this though - what happens to the parents and her best friend Saz? Will Claude and Miah ever meet again? Did her mum write the book/find the letters in the attic? and many other burning questions.

I will definitely recommend this book to older students (given the sexual content) and I am sure it will be enjoyed

A very sweet and slow-burning coming of age story, with a believable, well-imagined (and therefore occasionally infuriating!) teenage protagonist. Although the love story is the focus, it was actually the descriptions of the island that I found most effective - the suffocating heat and dense forest seemed to tie in really well with the adolescent senses of frustration and wanting to escape.

There were things I liked about this book but having loved Niven's previous two novels a lot, I found this one just didn't really do it for me. I just found it hard to connect to the main character. That said its very well written and plotted and its entirely possible I am just too old for teen books (I hope not though!!!)

I really enjoyed reading this story of Miah and Claude based on the author’s own experiences. Claude has to deal with her parents’ marriage breakup, growing up and dealing with change. She meets Miah on the island and he helps her to face her challenges and learn how to build a real relationship. It is a beautifully written coming of age story - challenging in its own way but also equally delightful.

It’s content is too old for my library users but I will be recommending it to my friends with older teenagers.

Definitely one of my highlights of 2020.