So where to begin.

The timehops were initially confusing. I wasn’t even sure at first if the person in the US was Michael in London.

The book conveys the depths of depression and the desire to not be ina way the resounds with me.

Life can be filled with sorrow and struggle but the ending shows the beauty in it.

The Selfless Act of Breathing looks at depression in a very personal fashion. The highs and lows, the questions. There is some beautiful writing.

I do believe there needs to be a trigger warning about suicidal ideation on it.

This was a beautifully written book. A man who seems to suffer from depression and thinking of suicide.

He moves to America and when his money runs out he will kill himself.

I have to say I found this very confusing. The timelines were confusing. I felt as if there was something missing. Some information was missing.

NetGalley/ November 2nd, 2021 by Atria Books

Yeah! If you didn’t know that JJ Bola had poetry in his wheelhouse, it will become clear to you after reading this very good novel filled with poetic prose, he writes in such a lyrical manner. This novel takes a surface look at depression, anxiety, and mental illness. The examination of mental illness is handled in a way that is different from how mental illness and depression is normally displayed in fiction.

Michael is at his wits end. He has decided he wants to have the ultimate freedom. He just doesn’t want to deal with life anymore. You don’t get the sense that he wants to desperately take his own life, but it feels more like he really wouldn’t mind falling down a deep hole never to be heard from again. ”I was a soul much more prone to my solitude. Not everyone seeks love, some seek quiet, seek peace. I slowly distanced myself from those around me and returned into the quiet where I had been all along. Where I long to be.”

On the surface Michael seems to have a good life, he’s a good teacher, has good friendships, money in the bank, what more could one want. Well, Michael takes all his money and decides to visit America from his home in London, with a plan, when his money runs out so will his life. So he boards a plane to California, visits Chicago and New York, enjoying some experiences and all the while the finances are dwindling, which means we are surely headed to a suicidal end, or are we? No spoilers from me, you’ll have to read it for yourself. At times sad, but not an overall sad novel, very entertaining and bravely rendered.

One thing that was a minor irritant was starting each chapter with a time and place but no date. What’s the point? The novel doesn’t move linearly, and that’s evident from the second chapter. So it moves back and forth across continents and in time. It is sometimes disorienting to write in this way, but my best guess is JJ Bola wanted us to be inside the mind of Michael, so the ultimate execution was a winner and this is a book, not to be missed.

This was such a beautiful, lyrical piece of writing. that follows a Congolese-British Londoner who decides to go on one last adventure in the United States, determined to end his life once his savings run out.

I enjoyed the words, the thoughts, and the feelings that went into this story so much. But I just didn't feel as much as I had hoped I would. It was such a heartbreaking and sad premise - but Michael was a bit of an enigma to me. But maybe that was the point?

It was really hard to connect with Michael - we barely "meet" him and don't know much about him as we are kind of thrown into the story and left to put the pieces together about his life through snippets of experiences. He was sort of a stranger - even by time I finished the book, I felt like I still didn't know him well. The story jumped around a lot between place and time that I couldn't fully immerse myself into what was happening.

I also felt like the big "reveal" as to what he was struggling with was very difficult to understand - as to why he was so depressed and sad. I do understand sometimes there doesn't need to be a big reason - but the direction of the story seemed to hint that there was.

I think the plot was very surface level and it added a lot of confusion as to who Michael was and what he was feeling. I wish there had been more internal character development. And I just couldn't figure out how he made it so far and did so many things - knowing basically no-one and with so little money. So many questions and mystery - that was never really answered.

I did read it very fast though. The writing was phenomenal and I did enjoy the story - I just wish we weren't thrown into the thick of it to figure out all the pieces and how they fit together.

Those with depression and suicidal ideation will relate to this main character. Obvious trigger warnings for those two things. This is not a fast paced story by any means, but it does get heavy into what it's like to plan the end of your life.

Point blank: I did not like this book. But, because I am a completist, I wanted to finish it.


Cons:

1. Chapter headlines. I hated that that the dates were not revealed. instead we get a location and a random time?? This might seem trivial to others but I really don’t think it is due to my utter confusion at the end? Knowing when Michael was in London vs when Michael was in Brooklyn (for example) would just really have helped immerse a reader into this specific world.

2. Dissociative narrator/narration. Part of the book, Michael directly narrates the story, but then, for the other portion, there is a third person narrator/FID situation. I don’t get it. I don’t like it. I don’t feel like I truly know Michael or his motives this way. His actions just don’t really align with his feelings primarily which, to me, feels like a result of the change in narration.

3. The portrayal of depression. I’m getting mixed vibes from what was intentional and what was just poor storytelling/writing. On one hand, there is this dragged out, mundane, DEPRESSING portrayal of depression which could be a sort of meta moment. And so, if that was deliberate—GREAT. If not… meh. However, on the other hand, what Michael is doing is so far fetched from those actually suffering from depression. Who just has the money to fly OVERSEAS to another country with their life’s savings and go city to city (or potentially country to country) AND they’re depressed?! It’s just unrealistic. It just doesn’t make sense. I can’t suspend my disbelief enough to fathom it.

4. Underdeveloped secondary characters. What is the point of Jalil? Sandra? The other teachers? Other in he states? They don’t seem to actually push or forward the protagonist, story, or plot, etc. in any valuable way. They certainly don’t have value on their own. It all just seems like a setup on Bola’s end for a situation without truly connecting to and/or influencing Michael’s actions and/or inner/outer world. They’re just random conversations to me. But again, I don’t know if this is a deliberate portrayal of normal friendship or just bad writing? I feel that since I’m posing that question it’s likely the latter.

5. The title/the end. I just don’t believe that suicide = selfish and not choosing suicide = selfless. That’s a very dated viewpoint and a cheap way to end a novel.

Pros:

1. Prose. Bola has some very poetic moments of prose. I did end up taking note of several beautiful lines throughout it the novel. That’s nice.

2. Relatability. Throughout reading this book, I went through several life changes and had a few epiphanies. I, too, quit my job (also a teaching position). I, too, felt alone. I,too, have been/am depressed. While I did relate to the story in spurts, I don’t relate to Michael. See con #2. So I guess this ultimately is a con? I feel like I relate to the depressed, nihilistic inner dialogue rather than to a fully fleshed character meaning those thoughts to wholly feel like they come from Michael.


At the end of it all, this book is just soooo underdeveloped and flat. It’s only semi-interesting. Tragically, I’m left wanting, needing so much more than what i was given, and with several unanswered questions such as:

What was the solution to Michael’s problem? How did he know? What was his thought process? He didn’t need medication? Therapy? How did Michael even get back home without any money? Why did he come back home? Didn’t he want to stay in New York? Didn’t he want to die?

I do think that this could be a nuanced portrayal of depression but there just needs to be m o r e and it needs to be restructured.

ARC provided by Atria Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

*Too lazy to check for errors. Y’all still understand me.

The Selfless Act of Breathing
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I didn’t hate the book, but also didn’t love it. It did keep my attention to the end. Michael is a school teacher in London and has suffered bouts of depression throughout his life. He grew up without a father who apparently died a violent death, although the reader never finds out what exactly happened. He has lived with his mother, Mami all his life. He quits his teaching job and takes his life savings to America, where he plans to end his life once his money runs out. The London days are in first person, the American days are in third person. I didn’t like that chapters had the hour of the day, but there was no way of knowing, how many days, weeks, months passed during the whole story. I felt that there were a lot of loose ends that should have been further explored, such as what happened between Mami and the pastor as one example. Overall a three star book for me.
Thanks NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the advanced copy.

First, this is a very well written book in terms of J.J. Bola’s ability to write beautiful prose without it being over the top. I was not surprised to learn afterwards that the author has published three books of poetry. Despite this, this was overall only a so-so read for me.

I could not connect with the protagonist, Michael, even though he is a good guy. Even with all the introspection on Michael’s part, I didn’t feel like I knew him. Why did he feel the way he felt? Why did he do the things he did? What was he like in his earlier years?

I also did not like the way the novel is organized. There are two timelines, confusing timelines, that jump back and forth but without dates. Furthermore, though Michael is the protagonist throughout, the London timeline is told in 1st person and the USA timeline in 3rd person. Why is that? I think it could have just as well been written in one timeline with a consistent narrative. That would have made it far less disorienting to me.

Then there is the last chapter. It puzzled me more than anything. There is some enthralling prose, but also a huge hole in some decision-making and an inconceivable event that left me wondering. I was devoid of tears.

Despite these issues, the book held my interest and moves along at a decent pace. It also speaks of depression and suicide in a lyrical manner that is simply exquisite. I do think many readers will love this novel, so I encourage people to try it themselves before deciding against it.

I would like to thank Net Galley, Maudee Genao of Atria Books, and J.J. Bola for an ARC of the novel. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

A strong story with one leap that the reader must make and that is that a Black man would choose to move to the US feeling that his life, steeped in identity and racial issues, would be BETTER there.

4.5 Stars

’they said
You came
looking for me
I didn’t drown
I was the water’
-Jo Nketiah

A heartbreaking story of life, love and loss set in London, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.

This story begins in London as Michael Kabongo, a teacher who seems to be popular with all, a popular, much loved teacher among his students as well as the other teachers and staff. His mother left the Congo for the UK hoping for a safer life, one without the violence that took the life of his father.

As time passes, Michael’s struggles with the life he is living vs. some unsaid life he feels he should be living. Something with more meaning, or perhaps changing lives beyond his classroom. As the world seems to be heading backwards in accepting that the colour of one’s skin doesn’t indicate how worthy one is of love or a life worth living. His hopes for his students, for all, is an end to both the atrocities that take the lives of young Black men everywhere.

He makes a decision to start his life over in America, believing that life will be better, easier there, and he heads to San Francisco, where he can fashion a new life, free of the pain of memories.

He quits his job, and takes his entire savings with him, a total of $9,021. He doesn’t specifically know how long that will last him, only that it will last him the rest of his life. That’s his plan.

This story goes back and forth through time, and his journey will take him to many places, and will introduce him to many people and different ways of life than he has encountered before, but his resolve never changes. It is a heartbreaking story in many ways, and not only for him but for some of the people that he meets on his journey. For others he is a beacon of light, if only momentarily.

A journey of life, of finding our way through sorrow, pain, and reaching for the light.


Pub Date: 02 Nov 2021

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Atria Books