I tried to get into this book but I just couldn’t make sense of it. Abandoned after repeated attempts. I find in my old age that I’m less patient with books like this.

Just finished #reading The Airwaves by Jennifer Mills, the weeks it took me to do so an indirect testimony to the depth of this unique and beautifully written contemporary ghost story. Compelling and unsteadying, insightful and disturbing, the final chapters reverberate with a *boom* to the chest, a held breath. Bravo.

“The Airways” is unlike other books. This review will be of a similar nature, because it is the only way to allow my thoughts to come to the surface after reading it. The opportunity to become close to the characters, to get to know them emotionally is minimal. You get to know them through their physicality, their presence, where they are and about the very sensory functions that keep them alive. You are immersed in the dead spaces of their lives, and can feel the loss of liveliness and connection, and the impacts this brings about. Time is also altered in this book; it does not seem linear. There are no connections, they are but fragment in the moments of life we witness through Adam, in particular.

The book, like the body, relies on the power of the lungs - picture an upside down tree – to kickstart a lifeforce into action, and stem through experiences and exchanges of other important components. Was Natasha was Adam’s heavy beating? Was Marita the moral compass burdening down on everyone? Was Yun the wake up call that Adam did not want? Adam seems to have temporary relief in all aspects of his life, and it was transitory at best. Maybe living and dying is not so black and white after all, and it is the in-between that is stark, blunt and absolute.