The Art of Not Breathing

by Sarah Alexander

One minute Eddie was there. And the next he was gone.

Five years on, and it’s Elsie who’s lost. All she knows is the pain she feels. Pain that her twin Eddie’s body has never been found after that day on the beach.

Then she meets Tay; confident, cool and addicted to free-diving. He says it’s too dangerous for her to join; it’s too dark, too scary, too deep. But what does he know?

He doesn’t know that being underwater is the only time Elsie doesn’t ache for her brother. That diving gives her flashbacks. And that uncovering the secrets of that day is the only way for Elsie to start breathing again.

• ISBN10: 1474903061
• ISBN13: 9781474903066
• Publish Date: 1 April 2016
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 29 June 2022
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Usborne Publishing Ltd
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[readingwithwrin]

"It's always the same. No one wants to be friends with the girl whose brother died. What if she cries? What if she wants to talk about it? What if she's all weird and morbid? I long to be in the water again, to remember more, to recreate that moment when nothing hurt."

See more reviews like this first on my blog

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Trigger warning this book deals with anorexia.

I went into this book with no expectations and truthfully I had forgotten what the summary had said it was about as well. Which I think was a good thing for a change.
This is a book about Elsie and her family dealing with the grief of losing her twin brother 5 years ago. They’ve all dealt with it in different ways; dad’s gone a lot, mom drinks, Dillion works out and restricts his eating too a very dangerous point, and Elsie steals and eats her feelings.
This whole family is very disconnected from each other. The parents have no real idea what’s happening in their children’s lives nor do they seem to care about how they are dealing with the loss of a brother. It’s always don’t say anything because mom can’t handle it, or did will start yelling. But Elsie and Dillion are dealing with it in self destructive ways, which not only affect themselves but after a while start affecting each other to.
Everything starts to change though when Elsie meets Tay and his friends who are free divers. (Free diving is when you hold your breath for as long as possible and go exploring underwater.) I found to be really cool and one of the most interesting parts of the whole book. Elsie not only seems to find a purpose in life finally, but she also starts to like how she’s physical look due to the free diving training. But after a while we start to see how Tay and his Friends have a rift between them. They want him to stay away from her, and we don’t find out why until Dillion finally starts talking about what happened and helping Elsie see what really happened on that day.
Overall I did enjoy this book, but I never really connected with any of the characters and at times things didn’t really seem to connect very well. Maybe that’s just because I had an ARC and it hadn’t had final proofing though. This story is told in three parts, and in each one we see the family changing as well as Elise having flashbacks as she gets into the water again.
This book dealt with a lot of heavy topics in a realistic and smart way. I found it interesting to see it as a boy having an eating disorder for a change; because that’s not something I think that happens in young adult very often. (if it has please let me know.) At times I did get really annoyed with Elsie when she would leave her brother even though he really needed her just so she could go see Tay.
After having said all of that though I do think this book is an important read because it does deal with death/loss of a sibling in a realistic way and shows how different people deal with it. Plus it’s set in Scotland which up until recently hasn’t happened much in young adult.

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.