smittenwithwords

[smittenwithwords]

Current TBR! 📖

Back to posting on here so I can actually remember the stuff I read and hopefully read more. It's only been a year and a half, why not get back at it.

This TBR is obviously not a full list, but rather books I've recently bought and my current library checkouts that I am hoping to get through before school starts back up in the next few weeks.\

📖 First and Then by Emma Mills (started already)

📖 Circe by Madeline Miller (started already)

📖 The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by Victoria Schwab

📖 Loki: Where Mischief Lies by Mackenzi Lee

📖 The Mormon Corporate Empire by Anson D. Shupe

[smittenwithwords]

I have no followers on this account so it doesn’t really matter if I post this or post in general, but this is more for me anyway. I’m going to try to get back to reading a lot and, hopefully, posting about it here because writing about reading makes me feel good and I need to feel good lately. That’s all. More books soon maybe.

[smittenwithwords]

📖 Breathless by Jennifer Niven

📚 First time read?: Yes

📚 Started: January 3rd, 2021

📚 Finished: January 14th, 2021

📚 Date of post: February 4th, 2021

📚 Books out of 10: 8.5

The Good Stuff

This book starts off in the town of Mary Grove, Ohio, with our main character Claude about to graduate high school. She has a lot of conflicting emotions about this, as it is a monumental turning point in her life. All of her plans for her last summer at home are turned upside down when she receives the upsetting news that her parents are splitting up. They say that they’re waiting until she graduates, but it still completely derails all of her thoughts about what the next few months would look like for her. 

She ends up going with her mom to visit family, and then move onto an island in Georgia while they figure out what to do next. This island is chock full of new friends, new adventures, and alluring history surrounding the mysterious Blackwood side of Claude’s family. Claude struggles with whether or not to embrace all of this new. 

Until Jeremiah “Miah” Crew, that is.

In comes the romance part of this YA romance novel. Miah is one of my favorite types of male protagonist. Beachy, artistic, carefree. He encapsulates the way that I often wish I could be. Claude notices all of these things to. They spend a lot of time together, and he shows her how to let loose and be herself. Watching turtles come to the beach at night, searching for shells in the muck at low tide, learning to ride a bicycle. Their fun experiences together seem to never end. 

While all of this is going on, Claude’s mom is also working on a new book. Her and Claude are both writers. They’re both interested in uncovering and writing about the women of the Blackwood family, and of the island as a whole. Seeing Claude’s mom be so into her work and allowing it to help her heal after separating from Claude’s father, and watching Claude discover herself as an author are both beautiful things. 

All in all, I loved these parts of the book. I liked that it showed the mother-daughter relationship in a way that made sense. Showed Claude wanting to be free and be a kid, and still feel like she wanted to help her mom past her hurting. I liked the romantic aspects of the book. I think they were really fun and they made me blush and audibly squeal at points. I also think that the conflict was very realistic. 

The Bad Stuff

Although there was a lot I did enjoy about this book, a few things rubbed me the wrong way.

The first thing is about how sex was portrayed. Overall, the idea that losing your virginity doesn’t matter and isn’t a huge deal is something I agree with. I think sex definitely takes emotional maturity, but the all the fuss about losing your virginity should be toned down in my opinion. So that part I was okay with. 

What I wasn’t okay with was that multiple times throughout the book Claude talks about how she wasn’t enjoying sexual activities that she was participating in and instead “going away” and “not feeling connected to her body”. This feels dangerously close to the feelings of someone who has been or is being sexually assaulted. Upon further review it seems that a lot of the book directly reflected Jennifer Niven’s own experiences, so maybe that was the case for her, but I think it should’ve been acknowledged. Enthusiastic consent is the only true form of consent there is, and I think it sets a dangerous precedent to put this in the book and have it be talked about as if it’s normal and just part of the process. 

The second thing is more of a personal issue in terms of empathizing with the character’s feelings. The trope (and also just... the thing that happens in real life) of people forgiving bad people for doing bad things on the grounds that “they’re still my dad” or “that’s my family” has always rubbed me the wrong way. Giving up on your family is wrong, betraying your wife is wrong, trying to pretend like you did nothing and not apologizing directly to your daughter right away is wrong. A lot of that stems from my own familial issues, but I still think it’s not great. Especially if someone else is saying it. Like when Claude’s mom would say that was still her father, she didn’t understand all the details, etc. etc. The felt very invalidating to the very real upset that Claude was feeling. 

To Sum Up

Again, overall, this book was a win for me. It was a really nice read to kick off the year and I’m happy I decided to pick it up off the shelf. I highly recommend it, especially for anyone who’s as fond of the southern/Georgian aesthetic as I am. (Spanish moss owns my heart) The ending hurts a little, but it’s a nice feel good read if you want to be entranced in a summer romance. 

[smittenwithwords]

I started my first book blog in 2016. It was on Blogger, and it was my pride and joy. I then posted on and off on there for about 3 or 4 years. Occasionally, I'd pop back in and write until my fingers hurt, sharing about the books I was reading with my 0 followers and 3 or 4 people who even knew the blog existed. But to me, it was special. To me, it mattered. I cared about reading, I cared about writing, and I especially cared about writing about reading.

Going into 2021, I knew I wanted to read more. I used to put down nearly a book a day, and because life can be cruel and busy and unfair, I lost that luster for a long time. I'm trying to train it back. I think that writing more would be a way to help that goal along. The only thing better than enjoying a book is sharing it with someone else.

So, with all that said, welcome to a blog where I'll make moodboards, share thoughts, and generally geek out over how amazing it is to process words.